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    Adventures with Leaders & Enders: Make More Quilts in Less Time!
    Adventures with Leaders & Enders: Make More Quilts in Less Time!
    Adventures with Leaders & Enders: Make More Quilts in Less Time!
    Ebook211 pages1 hour

    Adventures with Leaders & Enders: Make More Quilts in Less Time!

    By Bonnie K. Hunter

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    About this ebook

    An easy method to faster quilt-making, and incredible patterns to make use of your scrap stash.

     What if you could piece quilts even faster, work on more than one quilt simultaneously and save money, fabric and thread all at the same time? Bonnie K. Hunter will show you how to put the concept of Leaders & Enders to work quickly and easily, expanding your creativity, and upping your productivity all at the same time.


    If you have ever found yourself paralyzed by your stash, overwhelmed by scraps you just can't bear to toss out, arm yourself with a new rotary blade for your cutter, make yourself a cup of tea and start reading. This book is not only full of beautiful scrap quilts that can be made in between the lines of other sewing, but also contains many ideas for getting your ever burgeoning scrap stash under control, into useable sized pieces that work well with one another, and ready to be sewn into quilts you've always wanted to make. Bonnie K. Hunter has done it again!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateFeb 1, 2010
    ISBN9781617453649
    Adventures with Leaders & Enders: Make More Quilts in Less Time!
    Author

    Bonnie K. Hunter

    Bonnie K. Hunter is passionate about quiltmaking, focusing mainly on scrap quilts with the simple feeling of "making do." Bonnie enjoys meeting with quilters, teaching workshops, and lecturing to quilt guilds worldwide. She lives in Wallburg, North Carolina. Her website is quiltville.com

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      Book preview

      Adventures with Leaders & Enders - Bonnie K. Hunter

      Just what are Leaders & Enders?

      A long time ago, I learned to use a folded scrap to sew on and off of at the beginning or ending of a line of chain piecing. This always left something under the foot so I didn’t start the next line of piecing with long threads getting tangled or sucked down the needle hole pulling my fabric pieces with it. Or worse yet, having to trim all those long threads, trying to get them into the trash but finding them more often on the floor, clogging the wheels of my wheelie chair or tangled around the vacuum beater bar!

      This is how it worked: when chain piecing, as I got to the end of the line and it was time to remove the work from the machine to go iron the units, I put another fabric scrap though the machine and trimmed behind it to keep the piecing as continuous as possible. Then when I got up to the top of the piecing I just trimmed off, I removed the fabric scrap (sometimes called a sew-between by those who use this method) and had it ready for ending the next line of piecing.

      I typically had two sew-betweens going at any given time. One under the foot as the leader to start the piecing and the next one to be the ender as I ended the piecing. The ender becomes the new leader as I start the next line of piecing.

      I continued to use the same scraps to sew on and off of until they were clogged with thread, and they would still end up in the trash and I started with new ones until they were too full of thread to use anymore.

      Then a light bulb went off. What if I took a bin of scrap 2 squares that had been accumulating from trimming scraps down, and start using pairs of those as leaders and enders instead of a wadded up thread-covered scrap? I sewed a light square to a dark square, trimmed off behind it and eventually had a stack of little two-sies" that I could also use as Leaders & Enders to sew into four patches. And my adventures with Leaders & Enders began!

      Leader & Ender pair under the presser foot. Thread snips separate the work by clipping behind the Leader & Ender pair.

      A pair of two-sies being sewn into a four patch as a Leader & Ender unit following a line of chain piecing.

      I soon learned that anything can be a Leader & Ender! In this book I have used 2 squares, both scrappy, with all colors, as shown in Happily Scrappily Irish as well as planned colorways such as red and neutral as in Sisters Nine Patch on or blue and neutral as in the Blue Ridge Beauty. There are also quilts using 1 1/2 squares, and even some rectangles and squares, as found in Texas Braid.

      The premise is simple. All you have to do is think ahead far enough to have pieces cut and sitting by your machine so you are ready to have something to feed through in between your lines of chain piecing.

      What about that pieced border for the quilt you are already making? Who wants to leave the pieced border for the very end of the quilt? So, what if you took those pieces for that border, had them all cut and ready to go, sitting at the side of your machine? While you are chain piecing on the top, use the border pieces as Leaders & Enders and you will have that border sewn together and ready to attach to your quilt without having to stress about it!

      How about that UFO you have had cut and sitting in a box on your shelf for three years because you couldn’t make yourself want to work on it? Take those unloved pieces. Put them by your machine. As you are piecing on something you want to be piecing on, use those UFO pieces as your Leaders & Enders and your UFO will piece itself without you having to beat yourself up about it. That’s a great feeling!

      Leaders & Enders can be any shape: squares, rectangles, diamonds, triangles, even strips. It just takes a bit of planning.

      Did you know it takes 21 days to create a habit?

      Sewing with Leaders & Enders might feel strange at first, but after a while you will find yourself automatically grabbing for something to feed into the machine before removing your chain piecing for pressing. And, it’s a good habit to have—no wasted thread, lots of bonus units for quilts and more quilts sewn in between the lines of chain piecing other quilts.

      Leader & Ender projects can spend a long time in between other quilts to build up enough units until you have enough to make a full-sized project. Sometimes Leader & Ender projects will nag at you wanting to become a primary project! And that is okay too. For those of you who want to get a jump start on the projects in this book, you will find instructions showing how to quick piece the four-patch, nine-patch and other units in this book in fast order so you can use other pieces as your Leaders & Enders in between the quick piecing.

      How to make Leaders & Enders into basic blocks

      How to make four-patch unit

      When you reach the end of a line of chain piecing and it is time for ironing, grab two squares from beside your machine. Match them with right sides together and sew with a quarter-inch seam. Leave these pieces under the presser foot and remove your work by snipping the threads between your patchwork and your Leader & Ender squares behind the presser foot. Start your next line of chain piecing, ending with another pair of Leader & Ender squares. Start a stack of these little two-sies. When you have enough of them, you can join them together into four patches

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