Setting together may give a wrong impression to you of romantic mind. Now, as John Fox explains “whar you says ‘making a call on a young lady’ we says “settin’ up with a gal” – an, stranger, we does it!” Well, setting together a quilt means business, too, because the next and final stage is quilting.
The blocks presented here finish all the way from 5 to 20 inches square. Some may be made up according to choice, others must go a definite way to make the quilt top. In quilt parlance “set,” the noun, means material and plan other than the pieced blocks. “Set,” the verb, means putting together the finished blocks with the “set” (noun). Nowadays, we say “lattice strips” or “alternate squares”; these are the two principal “sets.”
The manner of setting together our finished blocks has as much to do with the appearance of the finished quilt as clothes do with the man! Or the old debate question of birth versus environment is paralleled – my blocks are so – what quality will their surroundings bring forth? Take blocks like the “Honey Bee” or “Order Number Eleven,” or even a simple “Churn Dash.” Visualize them as an all-over, or set slightly apart by inconspicuous white strips, or widened further still by alternate blocks. See how very different these effects are – and how changed again when the dividing strips are dark or pieced into a pattern. So even though you start with an ordinary pattern your quilt may be truly individual when finished. Some blocks must join edge to edge for an all-over effect as “Beautiful Star” and “Lafayette Orange Peel.” Some join but reverse color as “Mill Wheel” and “Rob Peter to Pay Paul.” Yet others join all edges of pieced blocks together but change position or placing into a more complex appearing all-over like the “Drunkard’s Path” or “Milky Way.”
A block must have strong individuality to use as a lone repeat this way; such blocks as Dutchman’s Puzzle, Goose Tracks, or most any of the basic four patch or nine patch blocks would lose their identity as blocks unless separated by strips or squares of plain. Pieced or applique blocks which alternate with plain squares, usually white, of the same size is the most popular method of setting together. This makes the pattern of each stand out boldly, the design blocks forming a checkerboard pattern with the plain. This is sometimes achieved with block edges parallel to the quilt borders, and must be so in such designs as “House on the Hill” where the block has a top and base definitely so placed. Other patterns have a decided top and bottom on the angle, as the trees, baskets and noon day lily. These are best set together diagonally with alternate squares, finishing with half squares, triangles, at the sides. The quilt called “Monkey Wrench” or “Snail’s Trail” does something different again, alternating one whole row with white and the next with colored plain squares, and achieving a most unusual effect thereby. An applique block may alternate with a pieced, as in double Irish Cross.