I felt like I was wasting far too much stabilizer, so I decided to try something different.
There is a really good chance that I am re-inventing the wheel, but I like this creative solution. It would not first time that “everybody knows that” but **I** did not. In case there are others out there that also missed this memo, I decided it was far too good a solution to keep it a secret.
When I was cutting the backing for my quilt blocks, I normally got six backing squares for my 5×7 hoop from a yard of the cut-away stabilizer. The stabilizer has to extend about an inch on all sides of the hoop, so there was more stabilizer wasted than actually used.
This last time I purchased more stabilizer, I cut the entire yardage down the center into two long strips. Instead of cutting the individual rectangles for stitching each of the blocks, I hoop it and leave the excess stabilizer at the top. Then I can cut at the very close edge of my embroidered quilt block, so there is only the bottom three or four inches wasted, instead of having three or four inches of wasted stabilizer at the top and at the bottom. As the quilt blocks are each five-inch squares, there was more stabilizer being wasted than actually used.
This solution made me happy, which is always a very good thing.
And it reduced the amount of stabilizer I was wasting, which makes my budget happy. That is also a very good thing.