In The World of Scrappy 9-Patches!

During this week’s Quilt-Cam I was sewing a bunch of red/neutral strip sets intended for some scrappy 3” 9 patches for an as-of-yet-undisclosed project.

My thought on making 9 patches from strips is simple….Make a batch of red/neutral strip sets, as shown here….and then divide.

1/3 will get another neutral strip sewn to the center red strip, and the remaining 2/3 will get a red strip sewn to the center neutral strip – but it all starts with two, as shown here.

Yes, that top strip has Y2K Millennium fabric in it!

When I sew, I just add strip to strip, and if one strip is shorter, I just butt another one on and keep sewing.  Short strip sets are my friend, as it builds my variety and keeps the same thing from being sewn next to the same other thing through the quilt all the time….

When I have sewn a large enough mass of strip set twosies, I cut them apart wherever there is a join…and then press.

Here I’m adding more neutral!

You can see one neutral ended, so I plunked another one down and just kept sewing.  I’ll cut where this join is before pressing, it makes things easier to handle that way.

Places with joins, ready to cut apart.

All ready to cut apart and press!

Both kinds of strip sets are now ready!

And this is where I save a LOT of time by pre matching short strip set to short strip set BEFORE I start cutting them into 1.5” sections:

Place strip sets right sides together and nest those seams!

Cut pairs, counting them along the way, piling them in sets of 10 pairs per stack.

Yes, I do all my counting and matching of what is going to end up next to what in the CUTTING process.  Then when I sit at the machine, the job of matching and nesting and COUNTING has already been done..I just feed them through the machine one after the other…it’s rapid fire fast!  The piles with the lights on the ends are pairs ready to sew.  The piles with reds on the ends are the ones waiting to complete the 9 patches once the first pairs have been sewn.  Everything is counted and ready.

Chaining away while listening to audio books on my MP3 player!

Nice stack ready to press!

Now here is another time saver for you.  I know we have a lot of gals that are super excited about their upright “thread cutter” be it a seam ripper in a base, or that purple thing, or a clover medallion on a base, etc..you know the kind? “Cut apart your units quickly” it says!  And oh yes it will….but do this FIRST:

Chain press them open!

I cut my chain into ironing board lengths, and lay the length on the ironing board and press press press press from one pair to the other.  Because they are STILL CONNECTED the job is quick and easy.  If you cut them apart FIRST, there is much fumbling and arranging and laying out and opening with fingers before you can press one small unit with the iron, and then the process starts again. 

This way…you just go right down the chain and it’s easy as can be. 

THEN you can come back and cut them apart after pressing.  I use scissor snips for this, but you could use that upright thing if you so feel the need for it.  I don’t.

Pairs on the left, last section on the right!

I love making my 9-patches this way…they are not much more work than 4-patches, and it goes really quickly.

Stack of 9 patches, job well done!

Baked potatoes are in the oven, steaks are ready to go on the grill.

The man is also happy with his new TV!

The phone company came out and said yes-indeedy –the internet and the phone line were fried in the electrical storm.  We've now got the phone line back, and the internet back, and will be getting things over the next few trips to get things back to the way they were.  We had the best surge protectors they offer….and they did their job, limiting damage only to the protector and the devices themselves, and our house stayed standing.  I’m grateful.

Tonight – I finish binding a baby quilt!


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