Stumped.........
 

I have a small collection of Bali Strips that are way off; some much wider, others much narrower, soooooo I have changed direction and am making a coin quilt with one and am looking for other ideas in which to use poorly cut pre cuts.

I have gotten over my precut phase and now order 1/2 yard cuts or bigger for quilts, but I do have a fair amount of precuts that need to be used up and I am finding out the hard way many fall short.

Check this out talking specifically about the Bali strips. http://www.bearpawproductions.com/us...May%20Vary.pdf

You could cut your yardage for blocks and use the various size strips for a piano key border. Or you could strip piece them and use them for totes, placemats etc. It's frustrating, that's for sure. I don't buy as many precuts as I used to. I love the variety, but prefer to cut them myself.

Completely understand. I no longer buy pre-cuts for that very reason. The coin quilt idea is a good one--at least you can salvage some of your investment.

Last year I toured the Hoffman facilities in Bali. They were in process of changing the way the pre-cuts are cut. They used to be all hand cut , but because of the number of complaints about the lack of accuracy .. they had purchased machinery to laser cut the precuts ( very impressive and I am sure quite expensive ) . There are still a lot of the older precuts out on the market.
I commented to the plant manager that the inaccuracy was a reason I avoided precuts. I also noted that the old labels said "hand cut" and if they wanted the buyers to know they had changed methods of cutting they should change the label.

I made a quilt once that might be an idea for you. Our guild had a challenge to make quilts out of fabric in grab bags, the final quilts to be charity quilts for victims of our many wild fires where many homes had been burned to the ground. I got a bag of strips of different widths. I was very new to quilting and I was totally stumped. How do you make a quilt out of strips? I came on this board looking for help, and one lovely lady guided me towards a quilt that she had made that she thought could work for me.

I ended up with a quilt that I was proud to turn in to our guild. (Our guild made 62 quilts in a 3 month time frame for this cause...) Let me see if I can find a picture, in case it might spark an idea for you.

Dina

Thank you Dina!!! That is a lovely quilt and I will certainly be able to use this, thank you for sharing this with me!!!! And such a wonderful quilt inspector you have there!!!!!

Dina I love your idea for odd sized strips! I will have to bookmark this idea.

Look for images/patterns for strata quilts. Also there is a pattern by 3Dudes that uses strips that might be good for various sized strips.

I just finished a Coin quilt with some ugly pre cut strips. I thought surely I did not buy that jelly roll! But since I am the only one who buys fabric, I guess I did. They were blues, greens and not well matched. Anyway, I used white with it and planned to donate it to something. But, with the white it looked like grass and water! So. it became a gift for son and wife for the lake house in Houston. They loved it even after I told them the "ugly" story!