Flower Garden Blocks 1940's

Taking on another Quilter's beautiful

Flower Garden blocks has been a 

lovely way to start the new year.

If you remember, I bought these

blocks at my Quilt Therapy silent auction

in November and throughout the holiday

I have been enjoying slowly piecing them together. 

There ended up being 97 individual blocks.

I have sewn them into long panels 

and are now sewing very long

zigzag seams.

 

All the while, 

I have been trying to figure out,

why the blocks were sewn both by machine

and by hand.

Were they sewn by two people or

if not, 

what was the Quilter thinking and what was the plan.

Well, I  figured out

she was a very efficient and systematic person.

She had come up with a plan

where she could save time and still

stitch perfect blocks.

Because she was not using an EPP method

she could vary her method of sewing.

Here's what she did.

After cutting out all her hexies,

and there are no pencil marks to indicate

she drew around a template,

she began sewing them together with a 

1/8" seams allowance.

Remember she did all

that fussy cutting .

A very talented quilter.

Step 1.

Then after machine piecing part of the first ring,

she sewed the two hexies on the sides 

to complete the ring by hand.

This clever Quilter found herself 

half the time at her machine and

the other half sitting and hand stitching.

Now look what she did for the next ring.

These next hexies would be floppy.

By leaving the seams allowances free

and because she used an 1/8" seam, 

she could easily insert and connect

other sections of a ring.

Do you see a pattern?

A bit of zigzag zag stitching.

She could work on multiple blocks at a time

sewing a bunch at the machine

and then finishing the rings later.

Here's the third ring.

Sew individual plain hexies to 

the second ring, 

sew 4 plain hexies together in a row, and

then attach these to both sides.

There's a completed block.

She could work on a bunch

of these at a time.

Her combination of methods seemed a

very efficient use of her time and skills.

But that's where she stopped.

I couldn’t think of a combo

method to sew the blocks together.

Could that have been part of the 

reason she put all these beautiful blocks away?

Whatever the reason, I feel very

fortunate to have been the next part of the plan.

So, slowly, 

 I've been zigzaging these together. ❤

Until Next Time-

Kyle