The concept of using Leaders & Enders is one that blew my mind when I first encountered it. Not only do you eliminate the loose threads and tangles that happen at the beginning and ending of a seam, but you can be building the patchwork for one quilt while getting bonus patchwork happening simply by how you choose your leader or ender!
Let’s say you are about to do a series of patchwork, and unlike chain piecing where you put several items through the machine at once, you are in a situation where you have to put them through one at a time. Maybe you have to do one block at a time because it’s that kind of quilt, or maybe you are using an offset setting. Either way, you have to put one piece in at a time.
Here’s how you use the leader and ender to get your double bonus action:
Step1
Start with a scrap piece of fabric in the machine. This is called your “leader.” Sew through it and stop just at the edge.
Step 2
Put your patchwork right up to the needle and line it up for sewing.
Step 3
Sew across the (very small) gap between the leader and your patchwork.
Step 4
Sew through your patchwork as normal, but stop just short of the edge.
Step 5
Here’s where the magic happens. Normally at the end of a chain you would sew onto another scrap of fabric. This is called the “ender.” But instead of sewing onto a scrap, you are going to sew onto a piece of patchwork from a different quilt. It should be something simple like random squares so you’re not trying to keep track of the order of pieces on your secondary quilt.
Step 6
As before, position it tightly up against the foot and sew across the gap and onto the “leader-ender” patchwork.
Step 7
Sew onto the secondary patchwork.
Step 8
Stop just short of the edge of the secondary patchwork. At this point if you have more to do with your primary patchwork, you can clip the threads in the gap behind the sewing machine and free the patchwork so that you can put it through the machine again.
Step 9
Repeat from Step 1 as needed until you have finished your patchwork.
As you can see, this will make a chain just like in chain piecing, but if you clip the threads as the patchwork goes through the machine, you can put the primary patchwork through multiple times while putting secondary patchwork through as your leader-ender. Magic!
Like I said, revolutionary!! I use this idea frequently — it’s a good idea to keep a box of simple patchwork near the machine so that you can always have productive leaders and enders available! But if you don’t, don’t worry, you can still just use a scrap so you can get the benefit of not having long, tangly threads. Either way, it’s a great idea.
I hope you find this useful!
Much love,
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