Well, I have finally started cutting squares for the Space Invaders Quilt! I was having some difficulty getting even strips to do mass cutting, so I took my mother's suggestion and stopped trying to be efficient. "Accuracy over efficiency, dear." was the comment, I believe!
I pulled out my materials and started with purple, since it was on top.
As you can see, I finally cleaned my table to make this easier!
Once I started cutting, I'm pretty sure I cut for about 4 hours straight. I needed a feeling of accomplishment. And I most definitely got it! I discovered that once I cut a straight line on the bottom, I could just line up the template and only cut two sides of it to have a square. Sometimes I messed up and there was more cutting involved, but at least I'm confident my squares are all 3.5" and will not do anything odd when I go to piece them together.
A very nice commenter told me about strip piecing (Thank StephC!) and I think for the next quilt I will definitley use that. I'm feeling a little uncertain about getting the strips right on this quilt. I'm hoping I get the hang of cutting nice, straight strips soon, because that would be really useful for my next quilt!
I cut 40 squares in a few hours, which was way faster than I expected and then I had to stand back and admire my handiwork....
And.... Then I cleaned my house, because my arm hurt. :P
When I stopped avoiding finishing my task, I came back and cut another 40 squares. Then, shockingly, I was done! I'm still a little amazed that I cut 80 squares in a day!
I also realized that somehow, my math on how much fabric I would need was off by about a factor of 5. I have 2 yards of this fabric and I used less than half a yard. It's a pretty purple though, so I will just use it in something in future!
Hooray for having a fabric stash!
Till next time (when I get to cut 80 blue squares and about 100 black sqaures.),
A
Update: After looking at my pattern again, I realized that I am very silly and cut way more squares than was necessary. Anyone have another child who should get one of these? I'm pretty sure I doubled all the numbers!
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