If you have been reading for a while, you know that I planned a scrap quilt to use my 2-inch strips…..

I planned it and cut all of the strips….and then realized that my calculations were wrong!!

I thought of two fixes….either put the block together as is and trim it down to size, OR increase the white square to 2×2.5 inches.

With this in mind, I set out to work on it at my guild retreat.

The results were NOT GOOD!

I started with the first idea of piecing and trimming to size…..

After trying three times, the width of the block was perfect but the length was between 1/4 and 1/2 inch too short!!

After thinking a lot about it, I decided that the problem was because I didn’t have any markers to ensure that the strips were all sewn straight. There was nothing to “match”.

Bottom line…..I didn’t want to fight it!

So, I moved on to plan B…..or is it Plan C?

I started grabbing sets of two strips, not worrying what colors I put together or what sizes of strips…..

Every so often, I would add a white square to the end of the strip…..

Then I started sewing all of the strip sets together lengthwise….

…until I had 2000-inches of strips…..

….with the idea that I was going to make a “Jelly Roll Race” quilt from my strips!

I finally found the two ends of the long strip…..

and began sewing them together along the long side…..

The first round of sewing took about 1 hour!!

By now, it was after 10pm so I made my way back to my room and pick it up again the next morning.

Join me tomorrow for what happened next!!

A few weeks back, I lamented that I had cut a BUNCH of scraps the wrong size……

Why didn’t you tell me??

As I said in that post, I had decided to just make the blocks as planned, but then cut them down to size.

BUT, Jodie commented that “if I changed the 2″ square to a 2×2.5” rectangle, the block would work.

The finished block would not be a square, but that might look really good.

SO….I played with it in Electric Quilt and came up with this design….

I could keep the design simple, like this…..

OR…. I can get sort of crazy….

…OR, REALLY CRAZY……

THIS could be fun!!

Of course there is one downside….

I wont be able to use all of these 2″ white squares that I have already cut…..

OH WELL….there will always be another project!!

Thanks for all of your suggestions. They truly helped me to stop and think about where to head next.

And, THAT is what quilters do!!!

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As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to ZOOM with my favorite West Coast Quilt guild….the Metropolitan Patchwork Society in Beaverton, OR

It was fun to share with them my brand new talk called “Stop Thinking, Start Scrapping”….

In it, I presented a number of scrap quilts, including this one called “Stair Steps”….

Fast forward a few weeks…..

I was scrolling Instagram and noticed that I had been tagged in a post from Anita D. This was what it said….

With yesterday’s snowstorm it was a stay inside day so I spent some time in the sewing room continuing my scrappy adventure. I zigzagged together some scraps of cotton batting and found a large scrap of fabric for the back. I used two bobbins of different green threads and quilted the runner. Raiding my plastic shoe box full of leftover binding pieces provided enough mostly green bits to equal the perimeter of this. I used so many scraps making this so why do I still have so many?🤣

This was the photo that was attached ……

She took ONE of my stair steps and turned it into a table runner!!

I love the way she used up batting, thread, and scraps!!

Thank you Anita……

….for sharing your fun idea!!!

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One of my favorite things about quilting is motivating others and helping them in their quilting journey. As part of this endeavor, I LOVE to present programs and workshops to groups and guilds around the world. All of my programs work well with Zoom meetings, and I would love to speak to your group.

You can find out more at this link…..

I told you on Wednesday that I had cut about 3/4ths of my scraps for the current quilt THE WRONG SIZE!!

But, I made the decision to keep cutting and adjust the block size at the end. We will see if that works!!

The next day, as I returned to my cutting, I just couldn’t cut anymore!!!

I NEEDED TO SEW!!

Since I only had a 20-minute segment of time, I decided to follow that need and SEW.

I grabbed one stack of the longer strips and one stack of 2-inch squares and started sewing…..

A few minutes later I had a nice string of pieced strips…..

I had already determined that the seams needed to press to the white squares.

AND, man did it feel good to hold this stack of “finished” strips in my hand at the end of that time…..

Tomorrow…..back to cutting WRONG SIZE strips!!

One of my favorite things about quilting is motivating others and helping them in their quilting journey. As part of this endeavor, I LOVE to present programs and workshops to groups and guilds around the world. All of my programs work well with Zoom meetings, and I would love to speak to your group.

You can find out more at this link…..

Last Thursday I talked about starting a new scrap quilt using scrap 2-inch squares and strips.

I also mentioned that the finished blocks would be 10 inches.

I have now finished cutting over 3/4’s of the strips…

and, as I cut, something kept bothering me….

I was cutting the strips in 4.5-inch, 6.5-inch, and 8.5-inch sections. I looked at my pattern several times and convinced myself that these were correct. I mean, I had not only done the math, but I had written all of the measurements out NEATLY on a sheet of paper…… as opposed to the scraps of paper that I normally use.

THEN…. the problem finally worked it’s way thru my thick brain….

If I am using 2″ scraps, they will finish at 1.5-inches, meaning that the block will finish at 7.5-inches and my strips should be cut at 6.5-inches, 5-inches and 3.5-inches!!

VERY BIG SIGH!!!

What do I do now? The best idea would probably be to re-cut all of the strips

But what would happen if I kept them the size they are now, matched the white squares when piecing, and then trimmed down the final blocks?

After a lot of thinking, THAT is my plan.

I have NO desire to re-cut all of these pieces!!

BUT really…..one of you should have spotted it!! HA