String Star Quilt

With an overflowing scrap bag last year, I decided to try a slightly different string quilt. 

String Star baby quilt

After dividing my strings into light and dark piles, the diamond foundations were cut from newsprint. Then a lot of sewing. And pressing. 

The outer background was created from isosceles triangles, again with a newsprint foundation, until an octagon was formed. Finally I sewed four right triangles for the corners to square it up and finished with a narrow border to stabilize all those strings. 

The quilting started with a sand dollar design in the center and spiraled outward. It's simple as long as you remember to spiral counterclockwise and keep the fabric from stretching on the bias.

Thanks to Maureen for reminding us to post on this blog, too. 

Ann

String Tulip Quilt QAL with AHIC:Improvisational Utility Quilts

 This quilt is my latest  for the QAL mentioned in my post title and you can see the
first post showing Ann's quilt at

https://adhocimprovquilts.blogspot.com/2021/01/ahiq-prompt-january-2021-electric.html

you will read that this was a prompt by Ann who blogs at

https://fretnotyourself.blogspot.com

This has been an enjoyable project, I still have borders to finish up
and I opted to make a collage in the centre rather than string pieced tulips.

Presently it's measuring 38" square, the string blocks were sewn onto paper
and great care was needed when removing the papers!  I used an extremely small
stitch which made the task much easier.

I'll post again when the borders are on.

Maureen

Dark Strings !

Unquilted, finished top

 I keep hoping to see new posts on this blog, so I've decided that today I'll be the change that I want to see !

 Inspired by Kate, of 'The Last Homely House' YouTube channel, I threw together a  small string quilt.

 I liked the idea of making it two distinctly different sets of values of squares on-point.  So I used my dark browns, greens, blues, reds, and black strips........and then countered them with brights of all colors.

I really wanted the dark to be the main foundation, so I made sure that I had six whole 'squares' showing of the dark.  Turns out I had just as many of the brights, I guess.

 Anyway, I love it, and it now resides on my kitchen table.

If I am not mistaken, I used a Pellon all-natural cotton for the batting, and it is thicker than my usual Fairfield 80/20 battings.

Machine-pieced onto newspaper squares measuring 6 1/2 inches.  Lime green flannel for backing, and machine-quilted, all on my 1953 Singer 15-91 domestic sewing machine. 

I hope you like it, and I especially hope that this gets the ball rolling with more string quilts to inspire us all !

Pink and Teal String Quilt

I have finally finished this charity quilt that's been long in the making. I really enjoy the "string" process.

I'm Still Here . . .

Like so many others,

it has been ages since I've posted here.

I cut the fabrics above 

into lots of skinny strips

to make a spiderweb quilt.

But that plan fell by the wayside.

Instead I'm going to use the colorful strings/strips

to piece scrappy strata by color groups

as part of the 2020 Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

January's colors are light and bright greens.

I've pulled those from the large box

and plan to start piecing strata very soon.

My goal is to share each set of strata

here at the end of that month.

One seam at a time!

Quiltdivajulie

Last Year's Roses

I finished this quilt last year, posted it on my other blog but never added it here. Sorry.

Why would I call it a string quilt? The background is composed of skinny to slightly stubby strings and scraps. After making several with a wider range of values I wanted one that could be a background for appliqué. 

And then I didn't really appliqué much. Funny how adroitly I weasel out of that task.

Chinese Coins with Roses quilt

The leaves and stems are machine appliquéd but the roses were... I don't know... free-hand/crazy/log cabin pieced. When they were large enough I added corners of blue fabric or small sets of Coins to allow me to insert them into single or double columns of the background. Does that make sense?

Rose detail

The finished top aged in my closet for about a year before I finally hauled it out to quilt. At least the roses didn't fade. I have a bad habit of setting tops aside until they are way out of date/out of style. I guess you could say I'm out of my mind. 

Anyway, it's a cute top that used lots of leftovers and strings with only a bit of fabric pulled from my stash for the stems and leaves. That was about a yard. And it was old/vintage fabric. And it's all gone now, too. So not much more work than my usual string quilts. 

Happy New Year to all. 
Ann

Scrappy!

Hi all!  Anyone else out there still working on string projects?  It's been quiet here this year.

I did finish this string quilt a few months ago:

 Inspired by this little project, Dashed Dreams:

 From this book:

 I enlarged my version quite a bit,

 and rearranged the order of the sections.

Mine is about 50" x 70".

Any plans for strings next year?

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An All About Strings Blog Hop is happening this week

This is my entry for the All About Strings Blog Hop happening this week. The hop runs all week and several bloggers will be highlighting their take on string quilts. My blog  www.quiltsbyjoanne.blogspot.com has a tutorial on how to make this particular design and other bloggers links can be found through my blog post. Piecefully, Joanne

2019 Strings

My first string project of 2019!

String quilts are very popular this winter, being shared all over the internet world, 

and I was motivated to participate. 

My inspiration was this photo of a vintage string quilt: 

 … from this book:

It's been added to my to-be-quilted basket, and will become a donation quilt.

I already have an idea for my next string quilt -- it's going to be a productive year!

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Red String Blocks

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2019 is working on your Red scraps this month. My reds are in good shape, sorted, many blocks made last year. But I did not get my Red string blocks done till this Saturday. I got 14 half red blocks done. 

I am using white string down the middle of each block. 

You can see my map of my quilt. I am not half done yet. I slowly work on each colour each month. I missed a few months, so hope to get back to the string quilt.