Yesterday I wrote about the new vintage fan block quilt top.

I said that it was flat enough to quilt as is but that I wanted to re-deign it.  I thought about it and thought I might want to leave it as is.  I started to press it and found that it did need a lot of work to make it flat.  So I spent last night taking it apart. here is the stack of blocks

The blocks are all off enough that I will need to fix them in order to make the quilting go the way I want.  First thing is to press each block

See how the fan section is pressed toward the white…this will make re-piecing it be difficult because it puts 3 layers of fabric at the corner. I am pressing all the blocks like this

Now there is just one layer of fabric at the corners (bottom left and top right) and piecing the blocks will be much easier.

Now they need to be square….first thing is to figure out what size they were intended to be.  Old patterns were usually in very regular sizes so I know they would not be something odd like 6 5/8″  it turns out they are 7″ blocks so I need them all square and all 7″.  One caution if you plan to do a project like this:  Don’t only measure one or two blocks!!  measure several to be sure of the size they should be….sometimes a few of the blocks are smaller than the rest and you can work around that by adjusting the seam allowance but you can’t glue the fabric back if you trimmed too much.

I don’t have too much to trim on this corner

about 1/4″ off on this side

every block is different some need a lot of trimming

some need less

all need some

I have this many done

and many more to go

I don’t know how many I will get done today.  I have to get my quilt ready to mail to AQS for the Grand Rapids show and I don’t have a label or a sleeve on it yet and I need to get my AAQI quilts mailed as well…so I should stop playing with my fans and get to work.    I have a hard time stopping once I get started on a new project…(I can stop a lot easier at the point where it is about 1/3 quilted and I have another project waiting to go (that is why I have 5 quilts that are QIPS….quilting in progress)

Happy Quilting

Tim