A few days ago, Carolyn in Florida left a comment about how much she disliked doing the cutting for a quilt project. I knew just what she meant. The cutting is never as much fun as the sewing.

Over the years I have come up with some strategies that help me survive the cutting process. And my cutting probably takes longer than most, because I make scrappy quilts. There are never six fabrics in my projects. There are more likely 60, or 600.

Some of these will seem obvious, but they really do help.

  1. Put a fresh blade in your rotary cutter. I’m the grand champion of procrastination on this task—I want to squeeze as much life out of each blade as possible. But in the process, I make myself miserable. Every time I change the blade, I wonder why I waited so long. Just do it.
  2. Tidy up your sewing space. When you’re facing a task that isn’t much fun, having a mess around you only makes things worse. I am a very messy person by nature. My sewing space is always a disaster. But I do know that when I really want to accomplish something big, it starts with having some semblance of order.
  3. Don’t plan to do all of the cutting at once. I’m working on a large Christmas sampler, and every block is different. Before I went to quilt retreat in the fall, I spent about 45 minutes each evening cutting out a few blocks. If I had tried to cut the entire quilt out at once, I’d have keeled over.
  4. Intersperse the cutting with some interesting piecing that’s very engaging. I often set a timer for 20 or 30 minutes. I cut until it goes off, and then I get to piece for the same amount of time. It’s like a reward system, and it works. I have to do this for work around the house, too. Anything you don’t enjoy is not as bad in smaller doses.
    If you want a no-brainer piecing project for this, try sewing bricks together in pairs of a dark and a light. Bricks are twice as long as they are wide: 1-1/2″ x 2-1/2″, 2″ x 3-1/2″, or 2-1/2″ x 4-1/2″. These are the cut sizes, which will finish at 1″ x 2″, 1-1/2″ x 3″, and 2″ x 4″. Later you can sew the blocks together like this:

  5. Have a laundry basket to toss the fabric in after the cutting is done. Below is mine, on the floor near the ironing board. Once in a while when it’s nearly full or overflowing, I take it someplace comfortable and fold the fabric before putting it away. Tossing the fabric into a basket helps keep you from getting bogged down in yet another boring job.
  6. In the next post, I’ll show you exactly how I press and layer up fabrics of different shapes and sizes to cut for a scrap quilt.