Quilting is something that I absolutely enjoy. I’m a beginner yet, so it’s constantly challenging and fun and creative all at once. The one problem I have, however, with every quilt I make, is the fact that it is awful hard to machine quilt on just your regular, run of the mill sewing machine. It’s a giant workout, constantly pushing, pulling, and trying to keep track of a big rolled up hunk of quilt shoved into a regular sized sewing machine. As much as I would do just about anything for one of those giant, crazy awesome long-armed sewing machines specifically meant for quilting, I’m not really thinking that is going to happen any time soon. (I mean, really, what’s with these kids needing to eat all of the time? They are totally killing my sewing machine dreams!)
So as I was searching for a better solution to my quilting dilemma, I came across the idea of quilting as you go. The basic idea is to quilt all of your layers together, as you are piecing your quilt, so that you are working with smaller, more manageable pieces. There are many different ways you can do this, but the basic idea is all pretty much the same: you stack your pieced block, with batting and backing cut to the same size, sandwich them together and quilt them first, and then actually join blocks together.
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You say that you should have made something with a half inch seam and not a 1/4. I can't really see how the block can be made with the outside a 1/2 unless it is just a one fabric edging. (I am doing peaches and cream which has two different halves to the block) I think I would make the backing blocks with a inch seam allowance incase things go slightly askew. This could be cut back before sewing together. Am I right??
I think (it's been a while since I wrote this, so trying to remember) the problem I ran into was that my seam allowance around my blocks was only 1/4 for my top, and between getting everything lined up it was just too little, made things a giant pain. I'd definitely err on the side of having more seam allowance than necessary and trim once you've got the blocks together.