More Strings

Since I started quilting in 1990, I have acquired lots of fabric! My love  then and for the next say 20 years was country fabrics as well as reproductions.

Some years ago a throwaway comment from my husband, that all my quilts look the same, made me rethink what fabric I was buying. I then slowly came to love the new modern bright fabrics.  Also the family who will eventually get my quilts would I know, prefer the more modern look.

So....what to do with all the fabric that I now ignore and leave in bins!!

I know, I'll make some string quilts for donation.  Thats all very well, but it takes alot of hours to stand cutting up miles of strings.  

 I started piecing this one, but what a disaster it turned into! I cut my strips 2"wide, just added more strips end to end, but it ended up curving around, and one side was about 3 "longer than the other side.

I think this was due in part to my strips not being exactly straight...you know with a bump around the fold area.

After looking at various string quilts online, I decided it would be better cut up. I also have 3 lots of about 5 metres each of solid brown fabric, which I no longer like. I purchased them one at a time for a quilt I made years ago, but each time, the shade was wrong. Now its looking at me every time I open my cupboard! 

Any ideas what to do with all the brown fabric?

Anyway I decided this top needed to be cut up and resewn. I folded it then cut into 10"strips.
Sewn together with some of the brown fabric. I was going to have the quilt this way up 

but then decided it would look nicer this way

I am so over it now, so will add a 2" Brown strip right around and bind it ...probably with a multi fabric binding.
It will measure approx. 50" x 62".

Thanks for dropping by

linking up with Peacock Party 

Edit: You can see all the wonderful “string” quilt wonders at Lori’s (Humble Quilts) link up today. Thanks for the challenge Lori!

http://www.susannasquilts.blogspot.com

Strings and friends

At the moment there seems to be a flurry of string quilts, which are so much fun to make.
A few years ago four of us were invited to another friends little beach cottage for a weekend of sewing.
The plan was for each of us to make a string quilt, sharing each others strips. 
My quilt was made with really large blocks, and I was going to use some old calico ( quite thin after years of being curtains)  as my backing instead of paper, but then found it would make the quilt too heavy, so used a light weight sew-on vylene.

We all arrived with our "strings" dumped them in the middle of the room and started sewing.

The cottage is very tiny, so with 5 of us sewing on our tables, and stepping around all our fabric it was a tight squeeze. As you can see we made a pathway to walk through. 

Two blocks stitched together.

 Back of the blocks stitched onto vylene.

 16 blocks together. Each block after trimming and sewing measures 16 3/4".  A funny size, but that was the average of all. 

Its still at this stage, as I'm not sure about batting and machine quilting, but I think I may use a light weight pellon.  

Another day a few years earlier sewing a string quilt for a grand-daughter.
 

The interest in string quilts and in particular Humble quilts has got me itching to start another one.



Thanks for dropping by

http://www.susannasquilts.blogspot.com

Half finished

I seem to have lots of things nearly or half finished, and because I usually like to show finished projects it means I don't blog enough.

I am forever sewing either at the machine or at night by hand. 

On my design wall at the moment is Bonnie Hunter's Mystery quilt. I loved where it was going, 

but when I got to this stage I decided I couldn't live with the oranges and reds together. Yes, I made it in Bonnies colours.  So, after making all the orange strip sets, they are now going to a different project. Don't ask me which one. VBG! 

So, I turned my red & cream 4 patches around and came up with this plan, which I really like. I used one piece of fabric instead of the orange strip pieced fabric. 

What I also really love is that it has been made totally from my stash. That's what makes me really happy, although I must admit I keep replacing my stash with more stash!

 Sorry its crooked but it is still in rows on my design wall. Hopefully by the next Peacock Party at
http://wendysquiltsandmore.blogspot.com/ 

I will have a couple of rows added. 
By the way, I have noticed a mistake, so I'll have to correct it! 

Thanks for dropping by

 
http://www.susannasquilts.blogspot.com