Thank you all-- that's sweet of you.
When I sew, I keep a stack of squares at the ready. I have them in pairs, a light and a dark one, right sides together.
When I finish up whatever I am sewing, I don't cut off the thread; I put one of the pairs under the machine's foot and sew a little bit of it. Then I cut the thread between that piece and my last piece. This really cuts down on the amount of thread that I waste. When you're sewing triangles it stops the machine from sucking the points into the feed dogs too.
So I have one there when I start sewing (leader) and I leave one there when I stop sewing(ender). And then I make 4patches from them. And when I get a few hundred 4patches, woohoo! Instant quilt!