200+ Squares in 2 minutes

Nothing makes one feel more terrifically accomplished than finishing a quilt.  With that being said, I try to finish as many quilts as possible, as quickly as possible. But if you're a quilter, you know it takes time...sometimes a lot of it, depending on how complicated the pattern.  In quilting, as it is w/other things in life, (no examples come to mind at the moment) after doing it for a while, you start looking for faster, more efficient ways of doing things. Hence, this blog post.

Every month at QA we have a "sew and tell".  One night a sister quilter brought in a bag she'd made. It was love at first sight! I immediately ordered the pattern from a local quilt shop, In Stitches.

I finally got around to looking at the pattern last night and saw that it called for 208, 2.5" squares. That's a lot of squares! And if you're not a quilter or just maybe new to quilting, it seems like it would take forever to cut 208 squares, but it doesn't have to! I knew I could do it in about 2 mins and here's how.

First I dug out 13 -2.5" x 40" strips from my 2.5" strip drawer. I knew this would come in handy!

Next, I layered 2 strips on top of each other then aligned several rows on cutting mat. Each 40" strip is folded in half and layered on top of another.

I then cut off the selvage and commenced to cutting 2.5" sections (each cut yields 4 squares per row) and...

Voilà!

This method works well for rectangles too!


A Thread for Life
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by Grace you have been saved...For it is by Grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. Eph 2:4-5; 8