The Crooked Man's Christmas Quilt: To Sash or Not to Sash

When it comes to sewing blocks together, we quilters seem to have only two options: we can sew the blocks together, side by side, or we can sew strips of fabric called sash or sashing between the blocks.  Sometimes I wish there were more options, but every time I think I've found a new one it turns out to be a variation of sashed or not sashed.

For this project, I deliberated both options.  My go-to method for most projects is to use sashing between the blocks unless assembling the blocks without sashing creates a new design effect, as when Snowball blocks and 9-Patch blocks are sewn together.  In this case, sewing the blocks without sash would have created colorful 9-patches floating in a sea of white -- not the effect that I wanted.  A red or green or even blue sash would have disrupted the white sea, but I was concerned that the constant size of the sashing strips would emphasize the irregular size of the white framing strips.  I know I named this The Crooked Man's Christmas Quilt, but I really didn't want to emphasize the irregularities!

So, I decided to add another round of framing strips in the style of the Courthouse Steps block.  To distract the eye from comparing the irregularities in the blocks, I framed four of the blocks with red fabric and five of the blocks with green fabric.

I couldn't fit much on my scanner, but this should give you a good idea of what the blocks look like.  When I sewed the blocks together, I alternated the red and green.  It was sunny yesterday and I took a photo of the nearly completed top, but forgot to save it to my flashdrive.  Here's a virtual rendition of my quilt made in Electric Quilt.

Tomorrow, I'll try to get the photo on my flashdrive!  (My desktop computer doesn't have my camera's software on it, so I have to download photos on my laptop in the trailer, save photos to a flashdrive and bring it over to the house where my desktop is.  Someday I'll get everything organized in one location.  Someday.)