Mad Dash Sew-Along, Week 12

Posted on June 20, 2022 by prairiemoonquilts in Mad Dash

We’re twelve weeks in, folks! Have you been doing lots of sewing on your Mad Dash blocks? I made several more over the weekend, but it’s time to have myself a cutting party to cut out some more. I’m almost done with one type/color of my blocks, and well along with some of the others.

I still haven’t started sewing my sections together yet, because I’m not happy enough with my stockpile of blocks just yet. I want to have the prints evenly scattered amongst the sections and not have all of them in one area, so I’m still making blocks before I start that. However, I know the sections will go quickly once I have all the blocks made.

Becky has hers all together already, and it’s very striking. She sent me a photo of it, and then I got a new phone and lost it, so I need to ask her to send it again so I can share it. I’ll share some more participant photos in a couple weeks, and there might be a give-away coming up soon as well.

But first, we are getting started on Section Three, and there are TWO new “techniques” you’ll have to work through in this section, so this week, we’re addressing the first one: how to switch the corner colors on some blocks.

Most of the blocks are one color or the other, but some of them have one little corner that crosses over into the other color, so this week, I’m gonna show you how to easily swap them out.

I hope I’ve explained this well enough in the pattern, so you can hopefully follow the diagrams to get this done, but I’ll do this little tutorial with photos of real blocks, for a little bit extra information, in case you need it.

OK, here we go . . . first, you need to choose the two blocks you want to swap corners on. Here are mine:

Unpick the row seam back past the seam of the corner triangle square (your row may go across, or up and down — I ended up with one of each; you can turn the block however you wish to make it easy and make sense to you):

Then unpick the seam to release the triangle square from the corner:

Then unpick the seam that holds the two triangles together:

Do the same for your other block:

I usually press the triangles flat after unpicking all the seams, so I have a fresh start sewing them back together. Then swap the very corner triangles on each block. Make sure you’re leaving the correct triangle with each block so that your churn dash is still intact.

Sew the triangles together to make the corner triangle square unit.

Then sew the triangle square back onto the end of its row, and press it the direction that makes sense to you:

You can see that I had a row seam going one direction in one block, and in another direction in the other block.

Sew the row seam back together again, and you’re all done! They’re swapped! That wasn’t so hard, was it?

I know it seems a bit counterintuitive to unsew a perfectly good block, but after experimenting with two of these quilts, this just seemed the best and easiest way to do it.

Next week, I’ll be back to talk about partial seams, because in Section Three, we are dealing with our first one of those.

I hope you’re having fun making a Mad Dash!

PS: If you aren’t making a Mad Dash with us, it’s not too late to join in and get started. This is a sew-at-your-own-pace sew-along, and believe me, my pace is a lot slower than most of the current participants, so you can easily jump right in without any need to catch up at all — the posts will be here indefinitely. You can find all the info about the quilt HERE. You can find the Sew-Along info and schedule HERE. And you can purchase the pattern HERE.

3 responses to “Mad Dash Sew-Along, Week 12”

  1. Amanda M. says:

    Well ain’t that just sexier than a rooster with socks on! That is so cool. I may just break my self imposed ban on new projects and have to jump in on this yet!

  2. Tanya says:

    Your directions are spot on and very easy to follow. I finished section 6 this morning. I can’t wait to get it all done. This is sew much fun!

  3. Shirley Guier says:

    I love mine so far. Still need to make more blocks so I’d better get busy!

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