Greetings friends of Sarah Vee! I’m Kay Mackenzie, a quilter and
designer in Santa Cruz, California. Sarah and I both have blocks in
Volume 4 of Quiltmaker’s 100 Blocks. Not only that, we’ve discovered
that they’re right next to each other on the cover! How fun is that?

Sarah
told me that she’s doing a series
on sashing options for joining blocks together, and asked me if I would
like to do one on appliqué blocks. I thought I would show two simple
ideas that lend a little bit more interest than just setting blocks
together plain.

Lots of classic appliqué quilts have no sashing
and are simply stunning. If you’d like to add just a little touch to the
setting, here are a couple of things I’ve done.

In the sampler quilt “Shall I Pour?” from my book, Teapots to Appliqué, I used floating squares.

The
sashing strips are the same fabric as the background squares, and the
cornerstones are squares of the print fabrics used for the teapots. This
design puts little touches of harmonious color in and amongst the
blocks without overwhelming them.

In “A Little More Tea” from Teapots 2
to Appliqué, I used the “sew and flip” method, also called
“snowball corners,” to add scrappy triangles to the corners of each
block.

When the blocks are
sewn together, the triangles form quarter-square diamonds of unmatched
prints, creating a mosaic or picassiette effect. Again, a way to add
interest without taking away from the appliqué in the blocks themselves.

I hope these simple ideas help spark your thoughts about settings!

Cheers,
Kay

By Kay Mackenzie
http://www.kaymackenzie.com  Books, patterns, & etc. for the quilter
http://www.allaboutapplique.net  Appliqué
blog
Author • Inspired by Tradition: 50 Appliqué Blocks in 5 Sizes • That Patchwork Place
Author • Scrap-Appliqué Playground • coming April 2012 from That Patchwork Place

Sarah here – Thanks so much, Kay, for your great applique setting ideas. Make sure you check out Kay’s blog today as she is featuring her 100 Quiltmaker block today – which means another chance to win a copy of the magazine!

This is the last day of the tour so you might also want to check the Quilty Pleasures blog to make sure you hit all the designers’ blogs before the end of the giveaways.

And you still have time for my 100 Block giveaway if you leave a comment here before midnight tonight.

With Joy,
Sarah Vee