How to Line up Sashing on Your Quilt Blocks

So here you are. You have just made up all these gorgeous quilt blocks and now you have decided that you would like to add sashing to your blocks.

The first thing you will do is measure your blocks and add a piece of sashing to one side of each block. Now you are going to sew the blocks together into a row.

Watch the video tutorial below or scroll down for written instructions

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So far so good.

The next thing we are going to do is add the long strips between the rows. Yep, great, all is going well. And then it comes time to add one row of blocks to the next row. But hey, we have a piece of sashing between the rows, so now we can’t see our seam lines to match them up. Well when I first began doing this I tried a number of different things but would invariably end up with seams that didn’t run straight and so I would end up unpicking and readjusting the blocks. After all we want those nice crisp seam lines that give our quilts a professional look.

Then one day the light went on and I thought “This would be so much easier if I could devise a way to make sure the seams matched”. That’s when I took my ruler and laid it along the seam line and made a couple of marks, with my frixion pen, on the long sashing piece. Then all I had to do was line up the seam lines with the marks and pin.

Well wasn’t that a life changer. It’s so easy to do and my seams are always nice and neat. (and if a seam does slip out of place when I’m sewing them together well that’s what my quick unpick is for.

So let’s take a look at how to get nice crisp seams.

Lay your quilt out and place your ruler along one of the seam lines and along the seam line of the block and the sashing.

• Take your fabric marker, I am using a FriXion pen, and make a mark.

• Move the ruler to the other seam and line it up along the seam lines as before.
• Make another mark on the sashing piece with your fabric marker.

• Repeat this all along the sashing piece wherever you have blocks that need to be aligned.

• Pop in some pins to keep the seams, matched up

Sew the rows together with a ¼”seam.

So there you have it, a quick and easy way to ensure that your seams match up perfectly every time.