Gridster Bee: August and Strip Piecing Tutorial

This month Debbie Gomes of Little Bird Quilts requested that each bee member make a different 2016 Moda Be My Neighbor quilt block in brights with a cream, low volume background. I was assigned #12. Instead of cutting all the tiny squares for the two 9-Patches separately, I used strip piecing. I figured today I'd show you this time-saving method.

I noticed I would need four rows of red-cream-red and two rows of cream-red-cream. To figure out my cutting measurements, I cut a strip the required width for each block. For the length, I multiplied the length by the number of units I would need plus a little extra for wiggle room. Since each square was supposed to be 2" unfinished, I made the strips for the red-cream-red units 2" x at least 8" (2" x 4 units needed). For the cream-red-cream rows, I made the strips 2" x at least 4" (2" x 2 units needed). I sewed the strips together in the appropriate order.

Then I crosscut into the number of needed units using the unfinished length measurement which was 2" in this case.

After rearranging into position, I sewed the 9-Patch blocks together.