Assembly lines

Every year I try to make some kind of a homemade Christmas ornament for each child, that they will be able to take with them when they grow up.

This year I took a torn-off notebook cover that was foil-printed with a abstract design, cut out shapes from it, and backed them with aluminum foil.  I embossed the backs using a small glass bottle that had a ring of little dots around its base.  Then I ran them through the laminator--just because I could--made holes with an awl, and put strings through them.  I didn't have enough string, really, and it was too thick, but I was able to partially separate the strands and turn it into four thinner strings.

For another project, I've been working on sewing up a bunch of pieces of cotton, some of them very small.  I was stuck for a long time, until I decided to adopt a simpler and more modular scheme for cutting them and putting them together.

I took a piece of paper, folded it in half, and tore it along the fold.  I did the same thing with one of the halves, and then again with one of the new halves.

I ended up with three pieces of paper:  one at full width, one at half-width, and one at quarter-width.  These became width templates, although I had to remember to always add extra for seam allowances.

With the templates, I was able to cut the fabrics according to the widest template that would work, and on to the smaller ones from there with the remaining scraps.

In putting them together, I worked from the narrowest pieces to the widest:  make a long strip of the narrow pieces, find the middle, and cut it there.  Put the resulting two strips side by side and sew them together.  Then add medium-length pieces on to the end, making another long strip, find the middle again again, and cut and join the two side by side again.  Then add the widest pieces.     

The largest pieces of fabric I set aside, but now I'm at the point where I need to know how much longer the strips (I have four, in different color schemes) need to be.  

That means I'm stuck again, waiting for my laundry helper to wash the blankets I'll be using as quilt batting.