Leader and Ender Convert

It took me a long time to figure out what "leaders and enders" were.  

(Leaders: patches of fabric you sew together before you begin sewing your main project and Enders: patches you sew together at the end of chain stitching which you keep in the machine until you are ready to sew another batch of blocks thus turning them into Leaders.)

It took me even longer to figure out why you would ever want to do that.  It finally came to my attention that some people use much more expensive thread than I do and using leaders and enders does save thread by eliminating the tails of thread at the beginning and end of pieces.  But still....

 Well, I decided to try it anyway.  I had a stack of vintage inspired eye-spy patches that I had been meaning to sew up into a quilt for at least 3 years that I dug out and started using as leaders/enders.  It turns out that I really like using leasers and enders and have made significant progress on the eye-spy patches.

Some of the remarkable progress is due to the fact that I kinda cheat and regularly sew more than one patch together as an ender.  They are just so dang cute and much easier to piece than the foundation paper piecing I have been working on.  Another unforeseen benefit is that I don't have to trim threads.  Since I am always chain piecing there are never any tails to trim off.  Score!

So do you use leaders and enders?