Stairstep Baby Quilt

Important pressing.
This time, press the seams you just stitched toward the lower numbered fabric. You will now have seams that interlock when you join the rows together. Remove all the pins.
You now have 4 sets of the six fabrics.

Cut each set into 2 1/2 inch segments. Sew 3 segments together, end to end. The order of the fabrics will be 1 thru 6, 1 thru 6, 1 thru 6. Place a safety pin in the first #1 block. Set this row aside. It is the first row of your baby quilt.

Continue stitching 3 segments together until all segments are sewn. Now sew each segment into a ring, joining the beginning and end of the 3 segment units.

Unsewing
Here's where you need the seam ripper.
Lay out the row you set aside, the first row. Pick up one of the rings you just made, and UNSEW the seam between blocks 1 and 2. This is your second row. Lay this new row on the BOTTOM, matching corners with your fingers, sew it to the first row. If all strips were pressed in the right directions, these corners will fit and you will not need to pin.

Warning One word of caution, it is easy to pick up a ring upside down, making the colors backward 6 to 1, so check the colors carefully each time you add a row.

Continue moving the blocks over a notch by unsewing the next number. You can continue all across the quilt, or you can do as I did, moving BACK a notch at the end of the first sequence to make the Z pattern you see above.

To complete this little quilt I did a "quick turn" and stitched the opening closed. I machine quilted "in the ditch" and double stitched the edge. The backing is light blue/very light blue.

This ring technique can be adapted to any size quilt, any number of fabrics, also can be used in "colorwash" fading from light to dark, etc. I'd like to know how your quilt turns out. Can you send a photo?

Happy quilting! See you next month.

Merry Sunshine

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