Reading 1820 Blogs Daily!


  • y-seams
  • Page 1 of 1 ( posts )
January 13, 2021
Four More Blocks This Week for my Retro '80s Building Blocks Quilt from Cheeky Cognoscenti

 Progress, y'all!!!  I've made four more blocks for my Retro Building Blocks sampler quilt this week.  New blocks are circled and numbered below.

16 Blocks Finished, 32 Yet To Be Made

I'm almost out of my Kona Ocean fabric until my order from Missouri Star shows up, so the most recent 5" blocks were selected because they could make use of the itty-bitty scraps I have on hand.  I'm at least partially using foundation paper piecing techniques for most of these blocks, but a few of the blocks I chose to mix require good old fashioned ...

read more
March 23, 2020
Victory! Nancy Cabot Cathedral Window Block Completed for Anders' Quilt from Cheeky Cognoscenti

Ta-DONE!  I have not been this proud of finishing a single block in a long time, but this one was a bruiser.  It's a vintage block pattern called Cathedral Window, designed by Nancy Cabot and originally published in the Chicago Tribune in 1933.  I foundation paper pieced as much of it as I could, and then there were SIXTEEN Y-seams of traditional piecing to assemble those FPP'd units into the finished block you see below.  The points are sharp, the block is flat, and it measures EXACTLY 20 1/2" square.  That makes me quite a happy camper ...

read more
March 22, 2020
The Beastly Y-Seam Block Has a Name: Cathedral Window by Nancy Cabot, 1933 Chicago Tribune from Cheeky Cognoscenti

When I was recreating, resizing, recoloring and revising the Moda Modern Building Blocks Sampler in EQ8 Quilt Design Software, swapping out some of the blocks for others in my EQ Block Library, I didn't pay much attention to the information contained in the software "notecard" for each block.  After toiling away at all of these Y-seams, however, I was curious about where this block I'm making came from and I went back to my software to find out.

Cathedral Window by Nancy Cabot, Originally Published in 1933 Chicago Tribune

The 20" block I'm currently working on was ...

read more
March 21, 2020
Y-Seam Reality Check and a Refresher Tutorial from Cheeky Cognoscenti


You guys, how did I look at this block yesterday and think there were only 8 Y-seams?  


My 20" Block
There are SIXTEEN Y-seams in this block!  See below.  Ugh.  I liked the Y-seams better when I thought there were only going to be eight of them.


The Wicked Block Diagram
So this block is kind of like the news lately -- it's twice as bad today as it was last night, and the only way to get through it is to just focus on ONE seam at a time instead of worrying about the whole block at once.  

I ...

read more
March 19, 2020
Back to Beware the Ishmaelites: Foundation Paper Piecing Plus Y-Seams from Cheeky Cognoscenti

Good morning, Fearless Quilters!  Happy First Day of Spring to those in the Northern Hemisphere, and I suppose Happy First Day of Autumn to those South of the Equator.  

Yesterday I pushed myself out of my news-induced funk and into my studio for a few hours. I had a lot of clutter accumulated on my cutting table that needed to be cleared away before I could cut borders for my Spirit Song quilt, and one of the things I unearthed there was the foundation papers, templates, and precut fabrics for the next block of my son Anders' "Beware the Ishmaelites ...

read more
  • y-seams
  • Page 1 of 1 ( 5 posts )