How to Cut Sashing for Quilts

Sashing breaks up large quilt blocks.

Sashing, or the strips of fabric between squares of a quilt, can add visual dimension to your quilt. Sashing can help your quilt pieces stand out. It highlight patterns and colors in your quilt squares. Sashing can also be used to increase your quilt's length or width to fit your bed or just to even out your quilt into a perfect square. Once you have finished your quilt blocks, cutting sashing from fabric is a simple task.

Things You'll Need

• Quilt blocks
• Fabric
• Measuring tape
• Quilt cutting mat
• Quilting ruler
• Rotary cutter or scissors

Instructions

1. Determine how many pieces of sashing you will need. You can first join your blocks in a row with strips of sashing equal in height to each row. You will then join the rows together with strips of sashing equal in length to each row, including blocks and sashing. Count how many short pieces of sashing will go between each block and how many long pieces will go between each row.

2. On a quilter's mat using a quilting ruler, measure your short pieces of sashing fabric that have a length equal to the height of each block and a width equal to the desired width of your sashing plus 1 inch to allow for a 1/2 inch seam allowance on each side.

3. Cut along the edge of the quilting ruler using scissors or a rotary cutter to cut each piece of short sashing.

4. On a quilter's mat using a quilting ruler, measure your long pieces of sashing fabric that have a length equal to the length of each row of blocks and a width equal to the desired width of your sashing plus 1 inch to allow for a 1/2 inch seam allowance on each side.

5. Cut along the edge of the quilting ruler using scissors or a rotary cutter to cut each piece of long sashing.

Tips & Warnings

• If you want a row of sashing around the border of the quilt, include a short piece of sashing at the beginning and end of each row of blocks and a long piece at the top and bottom of each row. You can also cut four long pieces of sashing to fit the quilt once you have pieced together the quilt blocks and sashing.

References

• How to Quilt; Add Interest to Your Quilt With Simple Sashing; Penny Halgren 2006
• Ludlow Quilt and Sew; Quilt Sashing
• Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts; Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia; 2010