From Janet Wickell,
Your Guide to Quilting.
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Many of our Quilting Forum members regularly participate in a fabric noodles swap. If you're not familiar with that term, it refers to long, narrow strips of fabric--usually 2-1/2" wide--that are rotary cut on the crosswise grain.

Some of the new quilters at About Quilting want to know how they can use noodles before they jump into a swap. Here are just a few ideas:

• Make the Can't Stop Spinnin' Block in an 8-inch finished size to suit the narrower width of the noodles.

• Use the fabric noodles for the small rectangles and pieced squares in the Not Quite Bow Ties block.

• Use fabric noodles to make scrappy quilt binding.

• Use them to make log cabin blocks and for foundation pieced blocks, which often require long strips of fabric.

• Noodles make excellent starting points for strip-pieced four patch and nine-patch blocks (bottom blocks in illustration).

• Cut 2-1/2" segments from them for your watercolor quilts.

• Cut rectangles and bars from the strips.

• Use fabric noodles for string-pieced blocks (top right block in illustration).

The list really is endless, and don't forget that you can mix other, wider fabrics from your own stash with the noodles to make them even more versatile.

Swapping quilting fabrics is a great way to build your quilting stash. Most of us tend to buy fabrics we "like," but sometimes it's important to buy fabrics that we need--darks and lights, cools and warms, large prints and small prints...swapping helps us break free of our color and pattern ruts by allowing someone else to choose for us. That nearly always inspires us to try something new.

If you're a new quilter, get your strip cutting skills down pat before you swap with others. Just a bit of practice and you'll be confident that your fabric noodles are ready to go.