English Teaching Tools


Getting Ready To Strip
By Janine Bouyssounouse


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Imagine all of the colors sewn together in a beautiful quilt. Strip piecing is a quick and easy way to build a quilt full of colors and memories. Quilts can be made from treasured scraps of fabric used in other projects or with new fabric or even a mix of new and old. There are several steps to take to prepare for strip piecing.

Fabric should be clean and ironed. Newly purchased fabric can be pre-washed or used right off of the bolt. The fabric should be folded so that it will fit on the self-healing cutting mat and the fold should be ironed flat to make cutting the fabric easier.

Once the fabric is prepared, then a self-healing mat should be placed under the ironed fabric. Use a clear acrylic ruler several inches wide. The ruler is placed on the fabric with the edge where the cut will be made. A rotary cutter that looks like a pizza cutter is used to cut the fabric. Run the rotary cutter along the edge of the ruler to cut the fabric.

The width of the fabric strips is determined by the pattern to be made. Cut the strips one half inch wider than the desired final width after sewing. A quarter of an inch will be sewn off of each side of the strip when it is part of the design. A common width for strips is two and a half inches wide to end up as two inches wide in the finished quilt.

Cut strips in the different colors to be used in the quilt. Once they are all cut, then they can be sewn together and cut again. Many patterns can be made with this technique, such as the log cabin or rail fence. Other patterns can be adapted to use this technique for faster piecing.


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