April 2023 Strips Cutting Report

I had to cut more strips and I certainly wasn’t in the mood for it this month! I had gotten so close that I had wanted to just take off cutting from before. But I did not. I kept creating more and finding more as I worked in my sewing room and general organizing. It’s just how it works. So, back to cutting!

From left - 1.5”, 2” and 2.5”

This is what I did. I didn’t start til after the month was half over. That’s really WHY I have these posts - it is to make me do it. I don’t really mind it, but I’d rather do sewing, naturally! Seriously, rather. But it’s all part of using up what I have and trying to make things neat again. It’s such a big process for me since I got so very far behind. Naturally cleaning up my sewing room and making more tops and sewing creates a lot more. So, the merry-go-round continues.

I decided to just try to devote 7 hours of cutting to this report. Why? Because I was slow in getting started and so I just decided to spend a lot of time in a few days on it. I don’t really like doing that, though, as it is pretty tedious work. I do tend to watch or listen to things while I do this, though. It helps pass the time. And I absolutely love it when I finish up a bunch of odds and ends.

So I spent about 4 hours on this past Tuesday, 2 hours on Wednesday and 1 hour on Thursday. I decided I had enough. That didn’t include some ironing of strips I had to do in order to trim up the very wrinkled strips.

 

Here’s what I did get finished.

2.5” - 8.7 lbs.

 

2” - 3.19 lbs.

 

1.5” - 2.31 lbs.

This is the chart showing this year so far. In spite of my spending 5 weeks in the states, I seem to be able to (so far anyway), get some done each month. I’m grateful for making myself do these posts, as they are probably the sole thing keeping me doing it when I don’t want to. So, THANK YOU for at least looking! As I’ve mentioned before, doing these monthly reports is forcing me to at least try to cut! I’m afraid otherwise, my piles of scraps would be ginormous!

And here are the totals from the beginning of when I began to keep track. The numbers are starting to climb - and that is amazing. That’s a lot of cutting and a lot of strips! It also means I have to get busier with using my 2.5” strips especially. I used so many 2” in my whole series that there is no reason not to use up those 2.5” as well.

The problem for me, is, I’ve “Jelly Roll Quilted” myself out - one month making about 7 for charity. After that I didn’t want to do them again. (I didn’t use a “Jelly Roll” - but just scrappy 2.5” strips that were color coordinated.) I’ll show one. Yes, I used up a lot of strips in this one - but this is well before I started keeping track of my strips. So there’s that. And even though it’s been about 11 years now, that I made all those tops, I kind of overdid it and have no desire at all to make another.

 
 

So there you are. Once again - to remind you that a typical 2.5” strips roll weighs a little less than a pound. So, value for value, if I only count the 2.5” strips, this month I gained myself the equivalent of almost 9 of those Jelly Rolls! That’s a lot of scraps! That’s a lot of money represented.

Thanks so much for coming along with me on this journey!

Have a great day wherever you are reading!

 
 
Becky Petersen6 Comments