Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Tip Tuesday! Kitting Up Projects

"Tip Tuesday!" - Kitting Up Projects

I love learning new things and then sharing that knowledge with my quilting friends. So, every Tuesday I'll provide some tips, hints, tricks, tutorials, shortcuts, etc. that I've learned over the years and share them here on the blog. 

"Tip Tuesday" will be a collection of information about a wide variety of subjects garnered from a large variety of sources.  I am not an expert by any means and do not take credit for being the great wizard behind all of these hints and tips. I will gladly give due credit whenever possible.

These tips will be archived and accessible to you just by clicking on the "Tip Tuesday" tab above. 

Read, enjoy, and be inspired! 

Do you ever feel like you want to sew but you only have a few minutes and that's just not enough time to get everything out, set up and then actually sew something?

I found that happening a lot and although I tried to get myself organized, it seemed that I just wasn't very good at it. Fast forward to my introduction to Judy Niemeyer quilts by certified instructor Sue Wilson and project kitting took on a whole new meaning for me.

While taking the Glacier Star class from Sue, we spent the first day just cutting papers, putting them in zip lock bags, pulling them out to cut fabric and then putting them back into the bags. In retrospect, it was a bit daunting (there were soooooo many pieces!), but I understood why we were doing it and I happily stayed on task. It really was nice to have all of the fabric cut and the pieces bagged up and ready to sew at a moment's notice.

That is when that proverbial light went off in my head! DUHHHHHH (I never said I was quick!) 

From that point on, I have always had at least one project kit up and ready to sew. It is surprising how much you can get done when you do this. Taking advantage of those ten minutes of "free" sewing time, or using pieces from a kit to sew on a leader/ender project really add up. And when I do have a good chunk of time to sew, the project is already started and often many of the units are already completed!

This Christmas, I made rag quilts for all four of my grandchildren and they were all kitted up and ready to sew whenever I could steal a few minutes. Here are a few pictures of how I had them kit up and ready to sew. I even put the thread that I wanted to use in the kit. Can you see that some of the blocks have already been partially sewn?

Rag Quilt - All kit up and ready to sew

I'm taking advantage of the few minutes here to sew blocks.

Rag Quilt - Chain Piecing

As I was sewing, I put the blocks in row order. That made short work of putting this quilt together.

Rag Quilt - Chain Piecing

As you can see, I got all four rag quilt sewn and it didn't really take much time.

Rag Quilts

I've got a few other projects kitted up and ready to go. (This is not all of them, but the ones that have been moved near the top of the "to do" list.) Some have the fabric cut, while others just have the pattern and fabrics bagged together. That of course prevents me from using that fabric for another project. Something I'm sure NONE of you have ever done.  :-)

Quilt Projects - Kit Up and Ready to Sew
Do you kit projects like this or do you have another method? Please share! We all want to be more productive and love to hear from other quilters.

4 comments:

Vroomans' Quilts said...

I do some kitting up, but usually put them in some kind of tote as it stores better than slippery plastic bags.

Unknown said...

I do believe you've given me yet another New Year's Resolution... Gee thanks Joanne. Luv you!

knittingbrow said...

I'm most successful with my quilting projects when I keep everything together. I keep extensive notes with my projects. I ALWAYS date my notes and sometime time stamp them. I don't throw my notes away, even when I'm finished with the projects.

Joanne said...

I know you do that knittingbrow and I think it's great! I really should get in the habit of doing the same. Thanks for the reminder.