Putting Steam Punk Together

This quilt continues to be a delight! My two remaining decisions were whether nor not to sash the blocks and whether to set them straight or on point. Matching up all the propeller points didn't sound like fun. The block construction makes a thick lump of seams when they are sewed without sashing. Without sashing, the quilt looked better straight set. Everyone who commented preferred on point. But the density of the sets I previously posted still attracted me. So I did both: some blocks set together, some sashed.

Steam Punk in two sizes with single Sawtooth sashing

The propeller quartets keep the feel of my original sets, a few extra-large propellers add a change of scale and the sashing pumps it up. Happy dance!

I reduced the seam lumps a little by carefully unsewing all intersections that extended into the seam allowance. This top will not lend itself to straight line quilting but the sashing can be ditch quilted.

Originally I sketched the double sawtooth sashing of historic New York Beauties with its wide inner sash (in a color or muslin) and many little sawteeth on both sides. It's as labor intensive as the block - master quilter's work. This seemed too busy for Steam Punk so I switched to large triangles.

The base and height of the triangles are 2.25" which is the diameter of the propeller centers. I thought I might put circles in the posts but they were again too much.

Paper pieced sawtooth border

The triangles were drawn on graph paper, scanned and copied. I steamed each triangle after it was added, then turned the paper over and steamed again. By the time the sashing was done the paper tore off easily. I trimmed the sashing before removing the paper. It's easy to trim from the back with a rotary cutter since you already know your points are perfect.

This will be another huge quilt. It will take a while to sew together and even longer to figure out how and where to photograph it. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks for all the support and opinions, everyone!

Enjoy the day, Ann