Sunday’s Strip-piecing tip

Fellow Quilters,

Today’s post will be quicker than most – I have another important job on my To Do list today.  I’m tasked with cutting Hubby’s hair.  I used to cut his hair when he was working and wore it quite short.  Now it’s a bit longer and he’s been using a local barber recently.  If all else fails, he has lots of different hats.  And hair grows – my bad styling effort is temporary.  At least we already have a hair trimmer – I hear they’re a hot commodity at Walmart these days.

So we are at the half-way mark of the Time to Quilt quilt-along – woo-hoo!

Block 12

Time to Quilt Block 12 looks very familiar to me – I think it may also be known as monkey wrench, hole-in-the-barn-door and churn dash.  I found the picture below of a fun quilt using 3 sizes of this block – you could make something like this with my instructions since I include 3 sizes!

Barn Dance QAL from Justquiltin.wordpress.com’s site

Yet again my cutting instructions don’t vary from the ones on Northcott’s, Banyan’s and FIGO’s Facebook pages – I haven’t rejigged the block at all.  We’re making the half-square triangle units like we have for several of the previous blocks.  And we’re strip-piecing the skinny strips like we did in Block 10.  My tip relates to those strip-pieced segments.

Today’s tip:  When I have a few units to cut from strip-pieced segments, I stack the segments on my cutting mat so that I can cut lots at once instead of cutting them individually.  I lay the first strip set on a horizontal line on my mat.  Then I lay the next one on top, aligning it with a different horizontal line on the mat, checking that the seam allowances aren’t stacked on top of each other.

I stack my strip sets, offsetting them by an inch or so to cut multiple pieces at once – faster!

I can stack several strip sets, off-setting each one by an inch or so.  It makes quick work of getting those units cut.  This concept works well for rail fence blocks, and I even use it when I am cutting out diagonal segments for lone star quilts.

Next thing you know, today’s blocks are done!

Block 12 done

You can find my instructions for Block 12 here.

Oh, by the way, I found 2 typos in yesterday’s pattern for Time to Quilt Block 11 ☹.  Sorry about that! I corrected the version on my blog shortly after I posted (the quantity of half-square triangle units should be 14, and the squares in step 3 were incorrectly labelled).

Northcott has used Material Girl in their block and quilt today (this collection speaks to me!), and Banyan is showcasing the elegant teal colorway of Vintage Chic. And I’m sure Daphne has some cool ideas on her blog today (we post around the same time so some days I post just before her and don’t see what she has done).  If you posted pics of your blocks on Friday on FIGO’s Instagram feed, pop over there to see if you’re a winner.

Have a great day and I’ll see you tomorrow 😊

Patti