Strippy Stuff!

The other night while I was sewing strip to strip to strip, and butting raw ends when one ran out and there was some of the other left…just laying them in there ---

There were several questions on “Why aren’t you sewing the ends together first? Why do you have all those raw ends??”

I’m just making 4 patches.  And the strip sets are going to be cut apart anyway, so I don’t need seams that I am then going to have to cut away when I cut my twosies.  I just piece in one long chain like this….

((Don't you just love a big tangled clumpy mess of strip piecing?!))

Where the top strip ended --- just butt another strip on!

Before pressing, I cut apart the strip set wherever there is a break in the piecing.  It’s too difficult to try to press this all in one long length because some of the shorter pieces are on the top, and some are on the bottom.  Cut them into sections with scissors! 

A pile of cut-apart strip sets!

All pressed and ready to match into pre-cut pairs!  Those short ends?  I'll match them with each other.

Streamline your piecing wherever you can!  Don’t just cut individual twosies into a basket and spend all this time picking one of these and one of those to match up.  If I end up with 5 or 6 four-patches in the quilt that are identical – will it be noticed?  Well, not as long as they are not close together!  Place two strip sets right sides together with the center seams opposing.

Trimming off one end to give me a good square end.  The excess red/cream set can be matched with something else for more variety!

Pre-matchd pairs, ready to be fed through the machine, no muss – no fuss!

If I am doing a TON of four-patches, I’ll take it one step further….stack my strip sets up on the Accuquilt Studio…..and cross-cut them through in already matched pairs.  Here I’ve already picked up several pairs off of the die tray ---very little waste pushed over to the right…pieces too small to save!

A whole tray of pairs with right sides together ready to sew!

I’m all set for Quilt-Cam tonight!  9pm eastern ---I’m going to be sewing on my Serata hand-crank.  She’s a sweet girl even if her Lion decal is about worn off in the center.  This machine was designed to also sew in reverse--That was quite the engineering feat in 1910 when she was made.

My day today consists of a meeting with hopes of getting a North Carolina retreat under way for August!  We’ve had a difficult time finding the right place, things were not gelling –it’s a huge amount of work behind the scenes for the gals doing the planning and arranging, and we may have some good news today.  So as soon as I know more, you will know more so stay tuned!