CAMP Baby Quilt

 No one's posted here for a while so I thought I'd add this since it's sort of a string quilt. This is probably the sixth baby quilt I've made in this style. Just find a four-letter-word and go. The words are made of Chinese Coin sets; at least that's how I think of them.

Our niece chose an adorable wallpaper/mural for the baby's room that has a row of  stylized deer, fox, bear, and rabbit in approximately these colors. 

CAMP baby quilt

There are quite a few browns in my stash but I had to work to soften them. Now the C looks like weathered wood.

More information on my blog.

Ann

A Pocket Full of Posies - now a finished flimsy

 My last post on April 28 had me about to put borders
on my latest AHIQ Quilt Along quilt.

After playing around for a while I went with the border treatment below

a single fabric border just didn't look right so after a bit of faffing
around I hit on the idea of splitting and inserting a thin strip
of the fabric used to make the centre collage.

The finished top is now 45 and 1/2" square.

I think this border treatment is definitely going to be used again on
a future quilt or quilts.

Maureen

Cool colours String quilt

 For the last few years I’ve been making one colour string blocks as part of the monthly RSC project. I realised I had so many and divided them into two piles, one Hot Colours, the other Cool Colours.

I recently finished the Cool Colours quilt and I love it.

The backing and blinding all came from stash. 

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. 

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.

 

Humble Quilts Strings QAL

Did you know that Lori over at Humble Quilts

is hosting a Strings quilt along?

Go check our her latest post HERE.

Lori also posted about it HERE.

I plan to participate with at least two quilts.

I also plan to share photos here on this blog.

I LOVE STRINGS!

Quiltdivajulie

Rectangular strings sewn together

Popping in to show off my completed string top.

I added piano key borders top and bottom.

It now measures 60 by 65 inches.

I'm basting and quilting it this weekend.

Some people left comments saying they prefer using paper foundations instead of fabric.

I hate tearing off paper,

and because these fabric foundations are 1/4 inch smaller all around than the block,

I don't have the extra bulk in the seams allowance.

I think both paper and fabric have their advantages.

I'm machine quilting this, so I'm not worrying about the extra layer.

Rectangular strings

I've been playing in the string bin again recently,

turning out rectangular blocks that finish at 6 by 9 inches

When they go together they make large diamonds.

I have a few rules for these instead of going entirely scrappy.

I'm using brights on the inside diamonds, and darks on the outside.

I've got lots of variety going here to give it more energy

and I'm trying to stay away from muddy colours on both sides.

This is my technique: I cut 6 by 9 inch foundations from an old sheet,

and ironed the diagonal  crease into them.

With rectangles, I need half of them to go left to right, like the one above,

and the other half to go right to left.

I cut 1.5 inch strips of a couple of beige prints, 

ironed them right sides together lengthwise,

and they laid the crease of the beige strip into the crease of the foundation.

I top stitched it in a matching thread right down the crease so the strips don't shift.

I want these strips to match up and make diamonds,

although I don't care if the other strips are various sizes or a bit wonky.

I'm cutting these 6.5 by 9.5 inches, so I make sure the strip is longer than the background.

Then I sew the brights onto the right side of the beige strips 

until I've completely covered the foundation, 

and trim the blocks from the back to 6.5 by 9.5 inches.

Repeat for black strips.

I've finished 16 blocks,

and have to sew black prints onto 32 more.

I may make this one row or one column bigger.

With 12 diamonds, it measures 48 by 54.

I would like it to finish at a throw size, 

so it's either more blocks,

or using up black strips for a piano key border.

Scrappy Half Log Cabin Stashbuster

I just finished this scrappy half log cabin top with the goal of emptying a bag of strings that had been lollygagging around for a long time.  The blocks began with 2" light squares, and were built out to 10" using random width strings.The light fabric used for the corner squares and inner borders consumed an odd less-than-a-yard chunk from my stash.  I used several different leftover ends of red solids to tie everything together.  

No particular destination for this quilt -- it was just a scrapbuster.

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The Spotted Winkel Quilt is Finished!

My quilt named The Spotted Winkel is finished!

Lots of string pieced circles and more.

Come visit my blog to see lots of photos

and learn the story behind this one-of-a-kind quilt.

Quiltdivajulie