Not So Liberated Quilt Blocks

I've admired these blocks on various blogs, and been wanting to make some myself. Some sources call them "Sticks" (as in the book "Freddy & Gwen Collaborate Again"). Others call them "insertion strip blocks". At any rate, it seemed a simple enough slice-and-stitch proposal.

But I forgot something. If you want the second insertion strip to be visually aligned from one side of the first strip to the other within the block (and I do), then the piecing becomes a bit trickier. You can see four blocks looking the way I want them to in the photo below. That's because they were the last blocks sewn.

The first block I pieced was way off kilter. Uh oh! Deciding I could not accept that look in the blocks, I knew I needed to refine my technique. And because the seams fall at various angles within the block, no two blocks were alike. So my approach to sewing was to just jockey the pieces around, pinning and eyeballing, flipping them right side up to check, until they "looked right". And little by little, they got more "right". Right, by defnintion then, is "inside my comfort zone". I've seen quilts made from insertion strip blocks that are randomly joined. And I like them. I'm just not quite there in my blocks at this point. I don't mind at all that the strips won't line up at the edges of the blocks when set together. That's a good part of the plan. But inside the blocks? Another story.

You can see in this photo of four blocks how "wrong" looks from my perspective. But now that I study the photo, I think I can include these in the quilt, and be okay with it. I'm warming up to these blocks! They certainly become easier and quicker to piece when they are more random. Yeah... they'll be fine.