When I started my First Light Designs website/blog in 2012, I created a “Tutorials” link at the top of my home page. One of the first tutorials I planned was on sewing Y-seams, formed when three seams meet at one junction; when stitched together the seams form the letter Y. Although the prospect of sewing Y-seams terrifies many quilters, I’ve never had an issue with them, probably because when I started making them in the 1990s I didn’t know they were to be feared. Ignorance is bliss, so they say.

In the last 13  years I’ve written 24 tutorials, which you can see here, and not a single one is about Y-seams. Now the time has come to write that tutorial. Why now? Well, I’m scheduled to give a demonstration on Y-seams at an upcoming meeting of my quilt guild, the Metropolitan Patchwork Society. Our meetings are hybrid now, with in-person presentations also available over Zoom in real time. I need to do a PowerPoint presentation for the Zoom portion and figure it will be easy to turn the PowerPoint into a picture-heavy tutorial on my blog.

I’ve decided to use the classic Bow Tie block to demonstrate my method, which differs from all others I’ve seen. It’s been years since I made any Bow Tie blocks but I knew I had some tucked away in a drawer. Imagine my surprise to find five dozen 6″ Bow Tie blocks! And a baggie filled with pieces already cut to make at least that many more!

I have no idea why I made so many blocks. Maybe I was just trying to use up some of those ditsy prints I bought in the 1980s. So what do you think? Should I turn these blocks into a quilt? Many of the prints are not ones I would buy now but they do have a sort of vintage charm. And the photo at the top of this post is giving me an idea for a setting . . .