Sometimes I wonder if I’m too old-fashioned, if I’m the only one who does this. So I’ll confess–I hand-piece. While it’s about 40x slower than machine piecing, I love it!

Reasons include: I can piece while reading, I can piece while watching tv,. I can piece while on the metro, I can piece while riding with Micah, I can piece in class (used to do that)…you get the picture. And most simple piecing doesn’t distract me at all from my other activities.

One thing I only started doing 2 years ago is string-piecing. As pictured above, when I have a lot of the same two pieces to connect, I do it in a string. I tie knots for each piece, of course. One doesn’t always have to do that when it’s done by machine.

It’s like machine piecing I’ve seen some people do. I choose to do it because it’s easier for me to keep track of all those little pieces.

Then I cut the pieces apart and pin them together to form a neat pile. Leaving them in a string like that for too long gets them tangled and can turn out ugly.

How do you piece? Do you bring it with you?