I finished hand sewing the pieces of both panels of my band sampler! Since I really liked the look of Sharon's sampler, with the six inch working width, I'm just copying it on mine. I didn't worry too much about the width when I was cutting (er, ripping, actually) the pieces of fabric - I just tried to make sure they were close to nine inches wide (as you can see from the picture, I was not always right). After I ironed the first section (haven't ironed the second one yet), I took a six inch wide quilting ruler, laid it down the center of the panel, and marked lines down the sides of the ruler with a silver quilt marking pencil. I was lazy. :-) But I can do a border over it.
The first panel, oddly (since I stopped measuring the lengths of the strips I was cutting after a while, and although I THINK I can still eyeball a 1/4 inch seam allowance, I can't imagine I got it perfect on every one), ended up being exactly 32 inches long. I haven't measured the second one yet, but it looks like it's three or four inches longer. Plenty to start with!
