Broken Herringbone Quilt: Work in Progress Part 4

For today's update, I am very excited to show you the result of piecing together all of those T blocks of fabric!  In the last update, I had most of the top half of the quilt done, but not connected.  I've been busy since then, even though I haven't been updating.  I finished all 5 columns (even the earlier columns needed more work, adding on to length to get a good lap size quilt).  Last night I finished connecting all the columns to each other to get the quilt front DONE!  I trimmed the edges, and am now ready to start basting.  And no, it's not coating my quilt in gravy.  How many times do you think that joke has been made by quilting bloggers?  Oh well.  Just like my newfound joy with the phrase "stitch the ditch," I get to make bad quilting jokes for the first time, too.

So here's how it looked along the way:

First few columns completely connected.  Wow!

I must note, though, that with the first column I did try filling in the gaps with little triangles as I mentioned in my last post.  My conclusion?  That is not the way to get nice edges to the quilt.

All those tiny scraps and sewing tiny triangles and just tiny annoying not matching up-ness all around.  Way too much of a headache.  I left that first column in place and resolved I would simply trim down the other three sides to get straight edges, rather than fuss with fill pieces.  Because I only have so many sanities in my brain and I need to keep them.

Next up: showing how to connect the columns.

All lined up next to each other to show you where they connect.

Close up!  See which pieces connect up?

Here's another way to show which pieces get connected.

And then poof- everything all sewn to each other!

Once the columns were all connected, it was time to cut off those edges.  Note my fancy Paint skills.  You wish you could draw scissors like me.  Even though I didn't actually use scissors--I used a rotary cutter.

Straight edges!  No really, they're straight...

And that's where things stand now!  I'm backing this with plain white fabric.  I'm going to quilt with zig zags, which will add interesting texture to the plain white side.  I also figured that with such a busy front, I didn't need a pattern on the back of the quilt. Nice, crisp white appealed to me.  I'll do a navy edge all around.  Stay tuned!