The Basics of Strip Piecing a Quilt

Learn how to save time by strip piecing your next quilt

Time is short these days, and most of us simply do not have time to cut out a million fabric squares just to piece them all back together again! At these times, it's necessary to learn shortcuts such as strip piecing.

Strip piecing is actually very easy. If you can accurately piece a 1/4" seam allowance consistently, then piecing a full 44" strip will not be difficult.

The idea behind strip piecing a quilt is simple: most quilts are created with a series of squares or rectangles in a certain color pattern.

Instead of cutting out each individual square or rectangle, in strip piecing, you piece together long strips in the color pattern, then cut them apart and stitch the pieces back together.

This saves huge amounts of time and effort!

Take this quilt for example. I pieced this quilt for my Mother-in-law, but got so obsessed with it being perfect, I choose not to strip piece it. Instead I cut out each individual square - all 1271 of them!

It took months of work to put them all back together again and really there is no difference in the look of this quilt than one that is strip pieced. No one will ever know the difference.

This quilt was strip pieced much easier and then cut apart to create a Bargello quilt.

As you can see, strip piecing can be as easy or as complicated as you want!

There are some things that you will want to keep in mind when beginning strip piecing:

• Don't pin strips unless you have to. Pinning often causes quilters to pull and distort the strips so they fit exactly to the pins.
  
  
• Before matching right sides, first fold the strips in half and mark the center with a crease. Match this crease so that the strips are evenly pieced together.
  
  
• If at any time you find yourself stitching a bigger or smaller seam allowance than 1/4", rip the seam out and stitch it again.
  
  
• Finger press seams open, then press seams again with a hot, dry iron. This will not only increase your accuracy, but all your seams will match much easier.

This article was taken from "Stitch it Up a Notch: How to Piece Perfect Quilts"

Learn how to cut and piece your quilts perfectly with this full color digital guidebook and over 2 hours of video demonstrations!

 

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