Untitled, Part 9

Untitled, Part 9

This week, I show you one of the less glamorous stages of the work, but very necessary.

I have now cut the sections into ONE block wide strips.  From there, each block will be trimmed to a 3"x 3" piece. Keep in mind that each of these blocks is already quilted, cut, and embellished with thread work, a complete LITTLE quilt, if ever there was one! Only, there are a lot more than ONE of these.   In fact, over a thousand!

The rotary cutter makes my shoulders ache. So I limited how much time per day I could work.  Very slowly, all the pieces got cut neatly into little blocks.

After working for so long on this project, it was nice to see the fruits of my efforts, and know that the real work of building the thing was coming soon!

You can also see a bucket in the background.  I kept all the trimmed off edges.  I am not sure why I did that.  Partly to see how much waste the project generated.  And, also, I might use them later in a different piece.  

One more step was to finish the edges of each little block so that the newly cut threads do not unravel into an unsightly mess.  I opted to use Fray check on the edges.  I grabbed a stack of blocks, and applied the glue with a paintbrush to the all the edges of the stack.  Then I quickly peeled them apart and let them dry on freezer paper.  My hands got so sticky. Yuck! And, for those of you who are curious....it took 4 bottles of Fray check to do all the edges.

Here are some stacks waiting to have their edges finished, along with some in the background that are finished and drying. 

Note: Next week, I will talk about the meaning of my project and show you a prototype or two of the build. Cool!! Stay tuned!