Even before COVID-19 had us all staying at home, I decided that this year, I wanted to focus on improving my quilting and sewing skills. As such, I’ve been watching classes on Bluprint like they’ll disappear tomorrow. From cooking to photography to quilting and sewing, I’m putting my Bluprint subscription to the test. I hear (though I’ve not been able to verify it myself yet) that Bluprint is free until September, so check it out if you’re not already a member.

I have a deep and abiding love for precuts, and I have been seduced many times in to purchase jelly rolls, honey buns and other confection-like fabric precuts, but I never really know what to do with them once I get them home. Sure, I’ve done the Jelly Roll Race a few times, and I’ve used them as sashing, binding and borders. But I’ve never really been able to come up with a pattern that I thought would do justice to these long strips. Right now, I have at least eight jelly rolls in my fabric collection. I also had this brilliant idea to make my own jelly rolls (because if we’re honest, jelly rolls cost a lot for what usually amounts to 2.5 yards of material; they run about $40 each in my area), so I bought a 2.5″ strip cutting die for my Accuquilt Go! I figured I could use it to cut up some of those pieces of fabric I buy just because I like them, and use them as a jelly roll. But what to do with all those strips?

Enter the Bluprint class Smarter Strip Quilting by Joanna Figueroa. I have followed Joanna on Instagram for a while now, and I always like the things I see from her, so I was interested to try out this class. Joanna shows you how to use those strips to make beautiful stars, interesting hexagons and fascinating diamonds. And there’s not a Y-seam in the bunch! I’ve always really wanted to try making a Lone Star quilt. If you’re not familiar, this pattern has tons of little diamonds that make up a stunning eight point star. There are usually so many Y-seams, it’s more than a little intimidating even for a quilting veteran like me. But Joanna breaks it down in a way that makes this quilt not only possible, but completely achievable in a way I never thought it could be.

The first lesson is about making sure your foundation is solid. In this case, foundation means that the strips are sewn together with a proper 1/4″ seam and that they are ironed without causing distortion. This has always been a problem for me, because I was taught that to get crisp seams, one had to really press those seams with a lot of force to push back the fabric. Joanna’s approach, however, teaches a more gentle yet equally effective way of ironing seams to be open and crisp without the distortion that can sometimes happen.

The second lesson gets in to the meat and potatoes of using strips to build your quilt. It covers 60 degree triangles and how to use your ruler to cut perfect triangles using the markings. I haven’t tried this yet, and I’m a little nervous about doing it, because of my shoulder issues, but I figure that I’ll give it a try. One thing that Joanna stresses is that every few cuts, check to be sure that you’re still straight. She mentions that no matter how good you think you are at cutting, your cuts will get off track at some point. I think she recommends checking your cuts every two or three times. Even though I haven’t done the strip cutting yet, I have employed this technique with my Little House on the Prairie quilt, and she’s right. No matter how careful you are or how straight you think your cuts might be, they can get off track very quickly.

The rest of the lessons – seven in all – go over how to cut 45 degree diamonds, how to piece the different size cuts in to various patterns, how to plan your strip sets so that you have the right amount of variety in your final blocks, and how to assemble the blocks so there aren’t any of those pesky Y-seams. I found at least three patterns in her class I want to try, all because they eliminate the Y-seams. All are quilts I’ve admired in the past but I was too intimidated to try.

My Bluprint subscription has “Own Forever” credits that can be used to purchase classes that you want to keep forever. Sadly, they’ve done away with that option, and I’m sorry to see it go, because I loved being able to watch a class, or part of a class, decide if I would find it to be of long term use, and then use one of my credits to purchase it. I wasn’t even finished watching Smarter Strip Quilting before I used one of my credits to buy it. I have a feeling I will be making several of the projects that Joanna illustrates in the class in the coming months. I found her to be enjoyable and engaging as an instructor, the class materials are sufficient and helpful, and overall the class is well worth the price of admission. I highly recommend it to any quilter hoping to expand their quilting technique.

If you are a quilter who has always admired pieced diamonds and stars, this is the class you need. You won’t regret checking it out!