With any quilt project I starch 1st and cut 2nd. Now that you have all your strips cut ahead of time, I'd be afraid they would shrink a little if you starched/pressed them now and you don't want that, do we? I made my 1st logcabin quilt ever while waiting for my house to sell and I just went with it. If any of the blocks came out wonky, once its quilted, you'll have a hard time finding it as someone else mentioned. I made it before I started up with the starching/pressing step too.