The Process of Quilting

Do you ever stop and think about how you like to go about making your project? Are you a dibs and dabs piecer, a follow the directions step by step sewer or a production line assembly worker?

I shift back and forth between all of those methods but if I had to pick my most comfortable sewing style I'd have to pick dibs and dabs. When I started working on Road to Oklahoma over the weekend I really wanted to be a mix of the other 2 methods. My plan was to cut all the pieces I needed so I set up my old cutting table out in the family room so I could watch TV and stay warm by the fireplace.

I started cutting yellow 2.5" squares and by about half way my attention started wandering so I started playing around with my Easy Angle rulers and cutting darks and lights. Then I wanted to make sure I was cutting them correctly so I finished the blocks I had started years ago and made up a few more.

Next I pulled out my bins of 5" charms and 2.5" strips and started pulling more fabrics randomly. Pretty soon I was distracted by the pretty purple strips in this drawer and paging through my jelly roll books for ideas. Are you starting to get the picture?

By yesterday morning I had a handful of blocks, a scattering of cut pieces and a huge mess in our family room. And I was frustrated because obviously the assembly line was anything but!

As soon as I let go of my self imposed "plan" and thought about what WAS working everything started clicking. Here are my 2.5" strips on a tension rod ready for cutting. I do this when I am making string blocks to hang the pressed strings and it works great for strip projects too.

On the back of my quilting room door you can see my new scrap storage method - an old over the door shoe holder that I'm trying out. Anything less than a FQ and wider than a 2" strip are being kept here. I've started rolling up leftover bits of binding and putting them in the outer pocket. I love scrappy binding so this will remind me to use them up.

I used to periodically cut my scraps up (as you can see by my bins above) to join my swapped collections but I'm going to try this for 6 months or so and see how it works. If I find I'm not using them I'll go back to cutting them up.

I also pushed my cutting table down to make room for the ironing board. I'm finding with these blocks I get too mixed up unless I piece one at a time. I'm sewing ahead with the parts for my next block as leader/enders. Again, the assembly line concept was breaking down far too often.

Normally since our laundry room is just a walk across the family room I like to get up and move around by taking my chain of pieces to press. Placing it in here allows me to keep my eyes on all the parts, the block instructions and the blocks on the wall so I can stay better focused. I think I only needed Mr. Ripper once all afternoon!

I also found that my scant 1/4" foot is a little too scant for the Easy Angle triangles so I dug out this press on seam guide so I can stay consistent. It also really helps me to not drift off on the tail end and lose my seam allowance. And I'm using more pins than usual to really hit those star points - I'm pretty picky on blocks like this with lots of contrast. That's just me and I'm OK with it.

So... dibs and dabs is working! Cutting pieces as I go, picking 3 fabrics that look nice together, assembling one block at a time and most importantly enjoying the process. I made one of the border blocks just to try it out as you can see.  They go together very quickly... perhaps the assembly line method will work just fine for them.

I've got 15 star blocks done and 33 to go. I'm thinking I'd better get Warm 16 Patches assembled so I can make more room on my design wall.

What is your preferred method of working on a project? Leave a comment and let me know what works for you.