Monday, September 2, 2013

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).

8 comments:

Karen said...

Great design to use up those strips! Very creative :)

Lorna McMahon said...

Great use of those pretty black and whites! And that multi coloured strip was just right! Looking good!

Kim Brackett said...

This is lovely!

Quiltdivajulie said...

How much of a pain to remove are the phone book pages? Despite others using them, I've not tried it yet . . . (love the size idea though)

Kevin the Quilter said...

Oh YES! This is going to be absolutely scrumptious!

Sarah Craig said...

Oh, P. that's awesome! I love the strips butted up against each other - very modern!!

Janine @ Rainbow Hare said...

This looks great!

Elizabeth said...

Fun stuff! I'm so glad you had such a relaxing, quilty kind of Labor Day.

xo -E