Let's strip.....

on this last day of 2010! Sooo much emphasis on "old", it's making me tired! How about something NEW? A sneak peek...something new to take into 2011. Are you ready??? First of all...you need strips!! Any size, color of length. Choose a size to begin with, as you can see my bin holds 2" strips. Pressing as you go is optional, but often gives you a better "join up". Let's join!
 Joining is EASY, joining is FUN! You can use the now famous "connector corner"ala Country Threads or just stitch straight across. The sew'n'flip' join yields bonus triangles, if that appeals to you. At the joining spot, you could stick in a HST of the correct size, or an hourglass or even just a square. It adds visual interest to the top, and is kind of fun. Not to mention you can use spare parts!! See how easy joining is? The length you create is up to you. Choose an approximate length to make your strippy quilt and GO TO WORK. You can make ONE long continous strip, or many of about the length you're aiming for. I usually make many and today I'm using 72" as my length. When you have two(the right length) join them up by matching the upper corner and sewing down the whole length. Now wasn't that easy???
 You just keeping adding to the "whole" as strippy lengths are created. One important tip is this...ALTERNATE ENDS as you add strippy lengths. If you don't you'll have a lovely curving mess before long. It's not hard, when you reach the bottom of the section, reach over to the opposite side of that section(which is also at the bottom) and flip it over to be the top for the next "join".
 
That's how its done. It's fast, easy and ever so easy to press. Even the quilting is easy. I zoom down the ditch every so many rows, depending on what width my strips are. The quilt shown here, I finished in the UFO challenge and it went home with my DSIL for Christmas. I used 3.5" strips in this one. The strips truly can be what you want them to be, width wise. I have also alternated widths within one strippy top. No reason you can't use some 1.5", 2", 2.5" and so forth. You just keep each strip row all of one size or another. When you join it to the one before, the width makes no difference at all. I hope you will give this a try. It gobbles up strips cut from fabric we are tired of, lets you use unpopular colors of thread to sew with, and makes donation quilts really fast. Just make sure you've got some brights and/or happy fabrics in there! Hugs for all, Finn