Sashing the Crazy Quilt Blocks

I had a marathon session today, getting the 25 blocks sashed.
I am so happy with how it turned out, and it is all due to a little conceptual break-through I had...Undoubtedly others have thought of this before, because it is so logical a solution...but it was a new idea to me.
The big problems with narrow sashing between heavily embellished crazy quilt blocks are two: one is keeping the sashing strips even as they are sewn. The eye really picks up wavy lines in narrow sashing. The second problem is the difference in the weight between the sashing strips and those heavy, multi-fabric layered blocks. So to solve these problems I fused 3/4" strips--the finished width of my sashing--of fusible craft "batting" (it is more like an extremely thin timtex) to the center of my strips.
This solved the two problems at once. The batting gave me a perfect sewing line, and it filled out my dupioni sashing just perfectly so that the quilt hangs just great.

You can tell by the lighting that I started early this morning! These are my craft batting strips.

I used my ruler to line up 1/4" on either side of my fused strip and sliced it. I didn't think interfacing my dupioni first was necessary because of the fused craft batting...but I should have known better. The edges did fray a bit during sewing.

The other good decision I made was in the choice of foot I used on my Juki, the "compensating presser foot". The "toes" on the left of the foot give slightly more clearance for the fabric to go under than the "toe" on the right. This helped with the bulk of the edge of the block going under that side of the foot...it also gave me a nice 1/4" edge to line the edge of my seam up against. All in all, a great way to go.

But...when there was a bead smack in the seamline I had to interrupt the machine sewn seam, then go back and sew that part of the seam by hand.

I just couldn't cut off that pretty purly white bead, now could I?

The lighting isn't great in this shot, but you can see the results of today's efforts. So far, so good!

Do click on this picture so you can see Stephanie Novatski's tree in good detail...I am so enjoying "getting to know" these blocks better as I work with them!