What is a "leader-Ender" project?
 

I saw this mentioned elsewhere and was wondering what it meant.

http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2005/...-and-hows.html

It's great method for some but it's too tedious for me to cut, save, sew and then get back to the block I was making to begin with.

It is just a small piece of fabric folded, or 2 small pieces of fabric, that you start sewing on before doing your chain piecing and that you then use again when you have finished your chain piecing. It is supposed to save on thread. The pieces I have used are all what would have gone into the pet beds anyway.

I use them most of the time because my machine likes to pull my threads down and jam when I start on an edge...it saves me from having that problem.

I've made both scrappy and planned "bonus" quilts with this method. Just takes a bit of prep time beforehand, but it is amazing how quickly those little squares or triangles accumulate!

This is not a leader ender project. For a project you use the pieces sewn together to make another quilt.

I only recently started using leaders and enders. I never seemed worthwhile to me before, but an instructor at a class I took encouraged us to use them (not to do a project, just to keep out stitching neat), and I now understand how it would work.

To use a leader/ender, you just have a couple chunks of fabric that you stitch onto at the end of your block (or set of blocks, if you're chain piecing), instead of cutting your thread. This keeps the start of your next seam from getting caught in your feed dogs, and makes it so there are no thread ends to trim on your blocks (which is why I'm now a dedicated leader/ender user).

A leader/ender project is just a second project that you do instead of using scraps for your leaders/enders. It could really be any piecing project, although I would tend to stick with something small, and in a different colour scheme from my main project (so I wouldn't get it mixed up). It actually seems like a very efficient method of getting a second project done, while reducing ends you have to trim in the first project.

I am trying to get organized to do this on several Bonnie Hunter patterns. But I need to get organized so that I am working on two quilts at the same time with similar fabric. I am afraid that I am going to get messed up on one or maybe both tops. But the patterns are similar so maybe it won't matter much.

Thank you for asking this question. I've wondered the same thing for a while but never thought to ask here.

For those who are "one project at a time" people, it won't work. But for the rest of us, it is a good idea if you prepare ahead of time.