Sew Crafty Friday

Leaders and Enders

Thread.... its everywhere in my sewing room, on my clothes and other parts of the house. The trash can beside the sewing machine is full of them too.

I read about the leaders and enders system on the Quiltville site a long time ago. Leaders and enders is a way of making two projects at the same time. This saves lots of thread and keeps clipped threads from getting all over the place.

I made this quilt a year or so ago using leaders and enders. All you have to do is have some squares or strips ready to sew and every time you get to the end of a seam on a current project, just stick them under there and sew. Leave the sewn strips or blocks under the presser foot and it becomes the leader when you sew the next seam on your current project. You never have to cut a piece of thread and put it in the trash.



In my mind however, I was just applying this concept to quilting. It occurred to me that I could be working on another quilt project while making pocketbooks. These are some blue strips sets I have started working on using the leaders and enders system this week. As you can see I have several little sets of strips ready to go. The finished project will be just like the quilt shown above except the strips will all be different blues and blue prints. It'll make a cute boy's baby quilt.



When the pocketbook is done I'll have some progress on a future quilt project done and if I continue to do this maybe at the end of the week there won't be such a big pile of wasted clipped threads in the sewing room trash can! If I had two pocketbooks cut out and ready to sew at the same time I could use this concept to do two at the same time. I am always complaining about not having time to do my projects, so voila! A way to make more projects in the same amount of time!

For more Sew Crafty Projects go to the Waiting For Him Site!