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. 

Back to Basics

I haven't posted on this blog in literally years. I'm sure any of us who have been quilting for many years have recognized the ebb and flow of interest in patterns and techniques, even in our own work. So after a hiatus I have returned to some string piecing.

There are so many different ways to work with strips and/or strings! I'd cut width-of-fabric strips from older yardage a few years back in an effort to clear out and update my stash a bit. But then I found I wasn't using a lot of those strips. I tend to work with specific size patches rather than long strips or strata. Or at least that's what I've been doing most recently.

I was inspired to cut my long strips into 8.5" lengths by a post over on Confessions of a Fabric Addict. I do love a Chinese Coins style quilt! And now I have this basket full of strips all the same length but in varying widths:

I'm sewing the strips together randomly, up to about 12-13 inches long so I have rough blocks to work with. When I have the number I figure I'll need for the quilt I'm building I can arrange and rearrange them before sewing them into columns, and then the columns into a flimsy. Here's what I have so far:

I didn't really expect to get this far this quickly! My basket still seems pretty full. I may very well have enough strips for two good size quilts. 😀

Magpie Sue

My First String of 2019

Happy New Year Everyone!!

A friend challenged me to get started in this new year. So I thought to make a string quilt because it's easy.
Here's what I've accomplished so far.

I used a type of tissue paper as a foundation. That's the white area you can see.

 I like all the gray fabrics and was happy to use as many as possible in this project.

I'll need to make 3 more blocks to finish the top then add borders. The blocks are 9.5 inches unfinished.

There's more to see on my blog and the story behind these fabrics.