Sashing That Is Part of the Design, Not Just the Join
Quilt As You Go (QAYG) lets you quilt each block before you join it to the next, but that joining step has a catch: QAYG sashings have to be made quite differently from sashings for other quilts. The QAYG Pieced Sashing Templates 2" Set, from Pauline's Quilters World, turns that necessary join into a design feature. Instead of plain strips, one set of six templates lets you make squares, triangles, flying geese, and star sashings — pieced sashing that looks like part of the quilt top itself, finished at 2 inches wide.
What These Templates Are
This is the 2-inch set in Pauline's QAYG Pieced Sashing Template Collection, and the listed template size is your finished sashing size, so there is no guessing about how the strip will measure once it is in the quilt. Each set includes six templates, worked out by Pauline and her team specifically for the QAYG technique. The same collection is also made in 1 1/2-inch, 2 1/2-inch, and 3-inch finished sizes, but everything in this set is sized for a 2-inch finished sashing. The templates do the measuring and the maths for shapes that would otherwise be awkward to size on your own.
Why Quilters Use Them
Pieced sashing is where many QAYG projects stall. Working out obscure shapes so a flying geese or star sashing lands at exactly the right finished width can take hours of measuring and calculating, and a small error shows up every time two blocks meet. These templates remove that work: the shapes are already sized to fit your QAYG quilt. That frees you to be creative — choosing a design that echoes your blocks — without risking strips that come out the wrong size.
How to Use Them: Step by Step
- Choose your sashing design. Pick from the shapes the set covers — squares, triangles, flying geese, or stars — and decide which fabrics will show in the sashing.
- Cut around the templates. Lay the template for your chosen shape on your fabric and cut around it. Repeat until you have the pieces you need for the length of sashing you are making.
- Stitch the fabric together. Sew the cut pieces together into a sashing strip, following the pieced design you chose.
- Run the strip through your Sasher. Put the stitched strip through the matching size Sasher tool — Pauline's team recommends using the same size Sasher as your template set, so use the 2-inch Sasher with this set — to fold it into a finished sashing.
- Join your blocks. Use the finished pieced sashing to join your quilted QAYG blocks as your project requires, and repeat for each row.
Practical Tips
Keep the finished size in mind when you plan: because the listed size is the finished sashing width, lay your blocks out with a true 2-inch gap in mind before you cut, so your pieced strips land where you expect. Make one test sashing first — piece a short strip, run it through the Sasher, and check it against two blocks before you cut pieces for the whole quilt. Consistent cutting pays off here more than speed: shapes that are cut the same every time stitch together into a strip that stays a steady 2 inches from end to end.
Care and Storage
Store the six templates together as a set so no shape goes missing between projects, and keep them flat with your other rulers and templates rather than loose in a drawer where edges can get knocked about.
Project Ideas
Use flying geese sashings between sampler blocks so the sashing carries the movement of the quilt, star sashings on a block-of-the-month QAYG quilt where each joining strip becomes a small feature, or simple square and triangle sashings on a scrappy QAYG throw where the piecing uses up the same fabrics as the blocks. Any QAYG project where plain strips feel like a missed opportunity is a good candidate.
Shop the QAYG Pieced Sashing Templates 2" Set at Linda's Electric Quilters.
