Continuing on from the last post where you sewed pieces to strips, pressed them to one side and cut between the pieces. This is called a twosie. Now you place another strip on the sewing machine, right side up. Add the twosie, right sides together and sew, making another big pile. It doesn’t matter which way you sew the twosie to the strip. Then, as before, press to one side and then cut apart. This is a “threesie”. Continue adding the twosies and threesies to strips until you have a big pile of moresies. Don’t worry about matching seams. They are not matched in this block. If the twosies or threesies are the same size, you can sew them together with a strip in between them.
When the block is big enough, place the square ruler ( 6″ or 6 1/2″) on the piece at an angle. Always use the same size ruler for each project. Move the ruler around so that the corners don’t come at a seam. Rotary cut the block. Every block will be exactly the same size. Continue until you have enough blocks for your quilt. Remember, most of the edges will be on the bias, so handle carefully. The bias edges will be taken care of when you add the sashing.
Arrange the blocks on a design wall, making sure that the colors are distributed equally.
Cut the sashing strips the length of your ruler and either 1 1/2′ or 2 1/2″ wide. The choice is yours. Also cut corner blocks. Sew the sashing strips to the block with the block on the bottom. Hold the beginning and end of the seam and let the feed dogs do their work to make the bias edges fit the sashing. Note the above picture to see how to place the block in the sashing and corner squares.
Add a 4″ to 6″ border. If the quilt is large you can add a 1″ border, a 3″ mile a minute border” and a 4″ border for a total of 8″ on each side.
To make the 3″ mile a minute border, piece together mile a minute scraps. You can incorporate the cut off pieces form the blocks. Cut the pieces 3 1/2″ wide. Square off the ends and add the pieces together until you have strips long enough for the quilt sides.
The quilt should be machine quilted or tied. There are too many layers for hand quilting. This block can be used in any other quilt block pattern that has a 6″ section. It is very nice when used in a stripy quilt Just add one block on top of the other for some of the strips.
I will continue with more tips for the Mile A Minute block in the next post.
Have a great day and happy quilting.
Miss Molly quilts 