Terri -- I bought some of this shrinking thread and didn't know what I wanted to do. I took some of the red star fabric and some of the blue star fabric and experimented using different stitches on the machine. The red shrunk nicer but I thought the blue was prettier. OK, then I decided to make the tablerunner. I took a piece of the blue star fabric (15"x15") and did all the stitching and then shrunk it with my steam iron. After it dries, the thread is "set" and can be treated like regular fabric. I then cut my block from that fabric. (Clear as mud?)