The red, white, and blue log cabin quilt has an enormous amount of cutting. In the pattern instructions the cutting was divided into 8 groups, based on the blocks to be made. That meant I would have to get out several fabrics multiple times because each color is in multiple blocks. I thought it would be more efficient to cut one color at a time, instead of one set of blocks at a time. To prepare the cutting instructions based on color instead of by blocks, I made an excel spread sheet where I could easily see what size squares/rectangles I needed for each color.
Cutting the white pieces went pretty smoothly, took a couple of hours, but no big issues. I would cut strips of the fabric by the first measurement (either 3/4 or 1 inch), then cut the width I needed. Many of these required large numbers (some over 100 pieces), so many strips were cut, then the widths cut from several strips at a time. The fabric was also folded in half, so two blocks were cut at a time from each strip. Below is a picture of the white fabric pieces.
The blue fabric didn’t go as smoothly and I didn’t realize my mistake until I thought I had finished the cutting. I was cutting the blue fabric, looking at the white fabric instructions. Rookie mistake! Unfortunately, the height of the fabrics were all wrong, these were all cut to 3/4 inch, and I needed 1 inch. Would have been less wasteful if it was the other way around, then I could have just cut the pieces down. Fortunately, I had enough blue fabric to recut to the correct dimensions, and now I have a baggie full of blue fabric pieces that someday I might find a use for.
I completed all of the cutting last night for all of the colors! It was a happy moment for me, cutting is uncomfortable for the back and knees as it is all standing work.
I had all of the fabrics in baggies to keep them from scattering, but they were divided by color. Since I will be sewing the fabrics together by blocks, I needed to reorganize the fabrics so they were in baggies by blocks. This was also a good time for me to confirm that I correctly counted all of my pieces so I wouldn’t have to cut more while in the middle of sewing. And, to be fair, I miscounted a few, so it was good I had this step to find and cut the ones I was missing.
Now, my fabrics are all cut and organized by blocks and I am ready to start sewing in the near future! I have several other projects I am working on at the same time, so I am going to work on those for a bit before I start sewing this project. Next blog post will probably be a couple of weeks.