Midnight Crossing - Checkered Sashing Posts

The next step in my Midnight crossings quilt is to make 25 checkered post for the intersection of the horizontal and vertical sashings. I'd already covered the sixteen blocks in three previous posts: 
8/18/22 post for block pairs 1,2,3, 8/23/22 post for block pairs 4,5 and 8/27/22 post for block pairs 6,7,8. The sashing posts start out with strips of the black and the cream sewed into two black/cream/black bands and one cream/black/cream band. I stack these three bands, nesting where possible, and slice them into twenty-five narrow, three layer, three-square segments.

I divided these three-square segments into stacks of five and began chain stitching them together. The goal was for them to be 3½ squares and they came pretty close, close enough I am going to punt trimming them.

I have a thing for the prints to all line up the same way, and they did. Here are my five stacks of five corner posts each waiting for sashing.

Before cutting my sashing I thought it would be wise to check my block size. Each block is supposed to be 11¾" and this sample one comes a small bit under by about ⅛ ". I am going to give them a good press and see how consistent the sixteen of them are before considering adjusting my sashing lengths. An ⅛" is fudgeable (i.e., able to be fudged) in my opinion.

Midnight Crossing - Blocks Completed

My Midnight Crossing quilt kit has sixteen blocks made from eight fat quarters. The previous ten blocks (five block pairs) were presented for block pairs 1,2,3 in the post for 8/18/22  and for block pairs 4,5 in the post for 8/23/22. This post is about the completion of the block pairs 6,7,8. 

I sewed the sixth pair of blocks from an orange zig-zag fabric that I bought as a replacement for the orange dot fat quarter that I mistakenly cut into squares instead of rectangles. Since I needed to buy a half-yard instead of a fat quarter, I had spare yardage to recover if I goofed; so I attempted to cut the horizontal posts so the  fabric ran in the same direction as the rest of the block. To do so would orient them at 90° degrees from default cutting diagram and it was possible they would not fit. I was pleased I figured out how to squeak everything out of a fat quarter all in the same direction. Here is that block out of the directional orange zigzag. 

My favorite time to sew is in the morning as soon as I get out of bed and am still in my nightgown. My sewing room is cool and I can still have the window and blinds open to let in light but not heat. I was "in the zone" when I whipped out that first block.

My husband poked his head in the door and said, "Your cell phone has been ringing off the hook. Shall I bring it to you?" (Ringing off the hook... there is an anachronism that dates us!) I accepted the cell phone, answered a few texts and went back to sewing. I was confident and cocky, having made this block pattern eleven times before, but the pause in my sewing had disrupted my momentum. Here is the first resulting goof in making that twelfth block.

Now that my cell is in the sewing room with me, I answered a few calls and sent another text. Bad move. There were consequences to the distraction. Luckily there was nothing too dire or difficult to fix in that second goof. The second orange zig-zag block turned out OK eventually, without any major mess ups that I can detect. 

Time to switch to the seventh fat quarter. Gray would be a welcome change. I also challenged myself to unify the orientation as I did on the orange zig-zag. On my block pairs from the first two fat quarters, I was focused on learning the block and did not want to tempt deviating to orient fabric. I was able to orient everything except two central posts the same way; but on such mini-prints that was not very obvious. I was going to attempt to do better on the gray mini-dot which does have a up-down and side-to-side aspect. I succeeded. All the dots are oriented in rows rather than columns.

Once I had the cutting configuration figured out both for the orange zigzag and the gray dots, I was able to orient the black zigzags consistently as well.

My progress since the last post was completing two each of the following three blocks – the final six. To get consistent orientation, each fabric required a bit more thought and deviation from the recommended cutting layout, but the result was worth it.

Here are the blocks from all eight fat quarters. I've made two of each for a total of sixteen. I am pleased that I substituted the orange zigzag fabric or the orange mini-dot fat quarter I cut in error. The orange mini-dot still appears in half of the X centers. My next step is to cut the sashings and make twenty-five checker board posts for the intersections of the vertical and horizontal sashings.

Now is the time to think about and decide on my backing fabric. This fabric line is from 2019 but there are still fabric stores online that carry some of it in limited quantities. I think I will look and see if I can find the multi-color criss cross in the lower left, or the orange and cream floral in the center. The mini prints are too plain for my taste and the zigzag might make me dizzy in large expanses.