Stringing Along

As I was tidying up the sewing space the other day, I popped the lid on a box of black and white scraps left over from the black and white quilt of 2011 that I recently finished.  I'd been meaning to make a string quilt from these at some point, but as I picked through the box, I noticed that a lot of the pieces were fairly short.  So my original idea of string piecing them on the diagonal went swiftly out the window (the thought of sewing a lot of strings together end to end in order to make them long enough to string piece diagonally was not appealing).

However, I could just string piece them straight across a foundation, like onto a 7x11 inch phone book page.  Then I'd have rectangles I could join together vertically, coin quilt style.

So I set about doing that.  Long rows of only black and white seemed kind of boring, though, and as it happened, I had a scrap of the multicolored print from a recent quilt lying next to the cutting table.  What if I used that print between the rectangles to break things up?  And to set it off a bit more, how about bordering the top and bottom of the multi print with a strip of white?

Thus was the new plan hatched.  

I was able to get 16 string pieced rectangles from the box of black and white scraps.  Then it came time to remove the papers, a task best done while watching or listening to something interesting for an hour or so.

I arranged the rectangles into rows with a solid vertical sashing between them—and I did not like it.  So I took away the sashing and just butted the vertical columns together against themselves, staggering the multicolored inserts.  Better.

Now I'm in the process of sewing the rows together.  I will end up with five rows across, a squarish shape measuring 30-something inches.  I may do an outer border (or two), or I may just bind it as is.

I hope those of you in the U.S. are having a relaxing Labor Day.  Hubs actually has to work today, poor guy.  Someone's gotta make the cheese (literally and, I suppose, figuratively).