I use a pice of batting same size as block and pin on . This way I can move it about to other places.

Ha! The key words, "efficient manner." My opinion: efficient manner is whatever scheme avoids the " 'Oops! and ripping manner.' " For me - hot off the design board. One at a time.

Pat

this is also how I do it. My design wall is right beside my machine so that is pretty easy to pick up the blocks and sew them. I also sew each row together as I finish sewing the blocks together and them put it back on the design wall so as not to lose my place. I can not seem to be able to keep the blocks in order if I stack them in piles.

I use a lot of these methods depending on what the block is that I am sewing. I really like this suggestion also.

I don't have a design board, and there is no way I could get down on the floor and get up again without a lot of help. I use my queen size bed, since I use a corner of my bedroom as my sewing area, and I will label sticky notes or pieces of paper pinned to each block with the row # and I try to go left to right with the blocks, and I don't take the papers off until the entire top is pieced.

This has been my method of marking blocks/rows to keep them in order.I do this on my design wall also.

I live in a manufactured home, and they never have large wall space, so I don't have a design wall, so I just lay them out on the floor, then use my little invention to keep everything organized.
I needed a way to keep things in order as I made a biscuit quilt, and wanted to keep things 'randomized', so I came up with the idea of cutting pieces of art foam into 1"x2" rectangles, punched a hole in them, and keep them in a quart Baggie, write on them with a sharpie, and use quilters safety pins to attach them as needed. Ta da! Now I can make any labels I need for organizing my work. I used an old blade in my rotary cutter, and a ruler to cut up several different colored pieces of art foam, so I can color code my markers. I can label rows, columns, block order, whatever. Best of all they are cheap and adaptable. Works for me.

This is what I do, too. Although when I made a log cabin, I had a drawing I'd made of the block pinned to the wall over my sewing machine, with the strips numbered so I could make sure I sewed the logs in the right order.

What Jo C said, it works the best for me as well. I've tried some of the other ways but always come back to making one as reference and then laying out the stacks in the shape of the block and chain stitching them.

I number each row.Then I number each block, say that each row has 5 blocks I will the in each left corner pin (1-1),(1-2,(1-3),(1-4),(1-5) and the second row I will , will start with( 2-1),(2-2),(2-3), do you see where I am going with this you do that with every row, I just use the little pastie notes. goed luck sarah

I do a lot of PP using strips. I'll figure out how many strips I need and cut them. I clip them together using those black metal paper binder clips w/ a small paper piece with the numbered section of the block clipped in it. I'll write the color name on a paper mock -up of the block & also glue a small piece of the fabric to that section too, so there's no question as to what fabric goes there. I mark an "X" on the wrong side of one end of each strip, so there's no mistake about right and wrong side, later. Then I just remove one strip from each of the clips, that I need for the block I'm constructing. The rest sit in a pile on the far side of my table. I have tried chain piecing on a long strip of fabric, but there's more waste that way. When that block is done, I clip any of the strips back into their group. I might have a couple clips with the same fabric, but cut to different widths. Then it's real important to make sure you have the numbers on each paper that correlates with your mock-up block. If I have lots of strip sets I'm not using for that block, I just lay them out on my ironing board, to keep them from getting wrinkled. I typically don't make lots of blocks that are exactly the same fabrics, usually each block is different.

I mark each row with a number and sew one row at a time. If necessary I will mark each piece in the block. This may take time but there's not much ripping out. I hate ripping out, it wastes sewing time. I've never forgotten the first adage I learnt in second grade, "a stitch in time saves nine".

thats pretty much how i do it too!

Nothing I've tried has worked for me. I always end up with 1 or more blocks out of place. It may or may not be noticeable. The A1, A2, A3, ..., B1, B2, B3 I think has the best chance of working.

I use JoC's method and its works well for me. Whatever you come up with for yourself will be fine, just use the same method for each block and it becomes a habit