The First Scrappy Strings Quilt

Merry Christmas! I hope yours has been full of family, food, and sewing!  Remember a month or so ago when I sorted my overflowing strings bin?  Seeing all those strings neatly organized gave me an instant bug to make quilts from them! The blue and brown string stacks were the largest, so I tackled them first and set about making traditional string blocks foundation pieced on top of phone book pages.

The string blocks measure 6" finished. Making this many blocks nearly, but not quite, wiped out my blue and brown strings.  Adding solid borders brought the top to 60"x84".

I love scrappy quilts like this because of all the bits you can use up.  Very traditional fabrics mixed with childish and modern ones. Flannels, quilting cottons, and corduroy, everything goes!

This little bit of Tasmanian Devil flannel came from some fabric my mother made me pajamas from when I was a child.  Long before I started sewing, and yet here it is in one of my quilts.

The body of the quilt is stippled while the borders got a curly wave design.  The binding, of course, is scrappy.  For the backing I found a brown and blue flannel. The quilt is awfully heavy, but wonderfully snuggly. Perfect for cool winter nights.

Wilson was as helpful as every during my photo shoot.  The fall days are just wonderful, I wish it could last forever!

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it Friday.  Merry Christmas everyone!!

WIPs: Reindeer and More Strings

It's Wednesday and here's what I'm working on :)

I'm up to 66 string blocks on the design wall. My blue and brown string piles are getting smaller but there are still a surprising number left!

 I also got my Reindeer blocks done for the Fair Isle Quilt Along. Just in time, as the next installment goes up on Thursday.  I would have gotten a bit more done but yesterday was interrupted by a trip to the vet. Wilson has pneumonia (again.) Fortunately a some meds and fluids and he was much improved today. Here's hoping we caught it early and everything will be fine :)

Linking up to WIP Wednesday and the Fair Isle Quilt Along, both at Freshly Pieced.

Strings in Action

If you remember last post I had sorted my overflowing string scraps by color. I decided to start tackling them by taking the two largest piles and making a traditional style string quilt.

I am foundation piecing on top of phone book pages to make 6.5" blocks of my true-blue (not teal) and brown scraps.  I had really hope for bigger blocks, more like 8.5", but I live in a rather rural area and even by bumming a phone book from the nearest city I was only able to get a book just under 7" wide. So far 46 of a hoped-for 130 blocks are done.

The fun part of a quilt like this is deciding on the layout. From the traditional diamonds in the top picture to zig zags or a growing echo-diamond.

At this point I think I like the traditional small diamonds best, but I am reserving judgement until I have more blocks to rearrange and look at. 

Linking to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.