I'm never good at sticking with leaders and enders. I love them in theory, but before long I forget to take them out when I start sewing or I don't have pieced prepped, so I move on without them. This starting and stopping sequence has happened a couple of times with these scrappy HSTs.
I also thought a lot about whether or not I still want to recreate the whole quilt. I really love the blocks, but I don't feel like making the throw size anymore. Plus, with my set goal of making more small quilts and the fact that I've decided to donate baby quilts to the province's Ronald McDonald house, I decided that making a couple of baby quilts from the blocks would be a better plan.
Each block requires 52 HSTs and I'll use 4 blocks with sashing to make each baby quilt. So 208 HSTs gives me a baby quilt and 416 gives me 2 baby quilts. Since I already have over 400 HSTs, I have enough to start piecing the blocks! With the ones I made last week, I have extras which is good because there are a few I'll probably set aside because their light/dark contrast isn't great.
My plan is to assemble the HSTs into pairs as leaders and enders, preferably without falling off the leader/ender wagon again. So these two baby quilts will still take a super long time, but that's perfectly okay. They've already been a WIP for 10 or 11 years, so I don't think there's any rush!
Do you do leaders and enders? If you do, do you have any tips for being consistent with them? I'd love to make them a permanent part of my quilting process, especially for this kind of scrappy quilt.