Miriam's Quilt - Part II - 3rd Post

Today will be the last of my posts updating Miriam's process of her Down On The Farm Quilt by Robert Kaufman designed by Cheri Wollenberg until I receive another update from her.  I'm so glad that she has shared this process with me.  I've been so amazed at her disciplined approach to this creative work and her talent.  Thank you again, Miriam.  My readers will be glad to receive the next installments of your progress!  Today's post is the fifth step continued from yesterday's post. Enjoy:

5.  Then I started to work on the frame that is gray and blue made of nine individual squares.  By far this is the most time consuming -- lots of steps to make sure you get it right.  Because of its intricacy, I always go ahead and do one complete block (making sure it all works well together) before treating it like an assembly line.  It goes faster if you do one step to all squares before going on the the next step and so on -- eventually sewing them all together to create the block.  I got one completed and it looks good so now I will concentrate on making the remaining 18 blocks which will take me a while.  In this block you have to have the right tools -- special ruler with 1/4" mark, pen that can mark but then when you iron the fabric the markings disappears and finally a ruler that allows you to mark a 3.5 square for trimming accurately after doing the two color square.  You also need to iron the seams in back of each row for the block in every other direction so when you sew it together the seams will nestle together and not create a thick bulk of fabric.  In addition, the blue fabric points in front of the blue block will meet nicely.

Well that is all for now -- will continue to put together the gray/blue squares and then I will be able to start putting the rows together.