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

Our quilt is getting media attention!

Thanks again to all of you for participating in this string quilt.

You may recall we donated it to the Katie Cares Foundation.

Katie's mother Ruth was just on a local radio station being interviewed about the foundation,

and she mentioned an upcoming fundraiser, which includes raffling off our quilt.

For the record, it is the first prize, ahead of a pair of Winnipeg Jets hockey tickets.

She thinks it is beautiful -- and I know all of you do too--

and she's thrilled that 20 quilters from around the world made it.

The website doesn't have many details about the quilt

(check under fundraisers)

but there's a link to our blog on the Katie Cares facebook page.

Check that out, and be proud once again of the effort we all made together.

What started as a bit of a joke to prove that string quilts are beautiful

has grown into into a larger piece of good work that could potentially help many sick kids.

Thanks again!

Anyone want to make another quilt?

Let me know in the comments, and I'll issue another string challenge soon.

Strings, strings, and more strings

I wish I could tell you this was a string quilt

but it is made from carefully cut curves.

The maker, Agnes Ryckman, made it with her mother

and her daughter machine quilted it.

I've been wondering if bias cut strips would also work

I saw this quilt at some local shows in the last few weeks.

I took this picture of a string quilt with a light centre

just to show you how one simple element can unify the whole quilt.

 

Here's the piano key border with the attached explanation.

Double click to read it.

Meanwhile, I got blocks in the mail from Cheryl, Paulette, and Carol.

Thanks to all of you, and thanks to Carol for the extra fabric she tucked into the envelope.

I made two blocks this morning, so I think my count must be close to 60 now.

Any more blocks in the mail right now?

I'm hoping to get it together before we wrap things up

at the String Thing Along blog at the end of June.

Thanks to all of you for playing along with me.

I've had fun!

Note: We don't have to wrap things up permanently in June,

but we started with a deadline, and I'm willing to honor it.

But we can continue, maybe with a short summer break,

if my blog authors and followers want to do that.

Just let me know.

On-Point Illusion

 The rose floral fabric is a busy focus fabric followed by a black strip followed by black/white strips on a foundation of muslin.

 This is how four blocks of b/w look sewn together and below four blocks of the rose fabric sewn together.

Because the black strip is the prominent center diagonally with the rose floral acting as the solid, the quilt appears to be on-point when all blocks are sewn together..... I loved making this quilt and finally got it bound this morning...... LOL..... it measures 68 by 86 inches!

Kite Drama

 I was combing through my stash of books, magazines and quilt patterns when I ran across the pattern you see in the background. It was then and only then that I remembered I had purchased the special ruler to go with it. Great! I have an abundance of scraps and strips of fabrics.... this would be a perfect time to start another quilt.

 Several hours later, I had enough strips sewn together to begin the next step....

I cut seven sets of eight kites that are needed to make a block or at least the block that I was interested in.
This kite shape has so many possibilities and I was so excited to see all the various fabric placements.

The first block option is the great looking design and the beauty of it is I don't have to match seams or pin anything.

Block option 2 is this four pointed star that I placed on an audition tone-on-tone fabric.

I then realized that if I was going with option 1, it needed something to square the block up.  After a couple of frustration hours of drafting, I came up with a workable template which needed to be reversible.

This is how the kite looks with the template fabrics sewn on. I went with the scrappy look because I really need to get rid of use up that large basket of scraps.

And that brings me to my next dilemma...... LOL.... back to the old drafting paper..... to be continued.

Ugly?

Here's my string challenge block!  I tried to pick out some really ugly mismatched fabrics for my block, but I honestly don't think it turned out that bad.  There's no doubt in my mind that all these "ugly" blocks will make a beautiful scrappy quilt for charity!

Different strokes and a string block challenge

Brenda here posting this for my friend Terry, who couldn't get Blogger to work for her.

She made this set of scrappy diagonal string squares.

I like the consistent dark diagonal strip.

Here's what she said about them:
I took these squares to coffee break at work to show to a quilting friend. One of the other women at coffee exclaimed, "That is soooo ugly!!" Uhm.  "Look," she says, "Those colours don't even go together ....and those strips are different widths."

Very amusing. There are no convincing her that this was a string quilt made from scraps and BELIEVE ME, it will all work out in the end.

I haven't decided if I'll just make a few more squares and run them together or if I'll put a border around groups of four. Wait and see!

 This is Brenda again.

For the record, I love diagonal string blocks, the scrappier the better. And believe me Terry, these colours do GO together. It's going to be a great quilt.

Just to prove that anything goes when it comes to string blocks, I'm proposing a little challenge.

1.Make an 8.5 inch string block with a black diagonal like Terry did. Please sew it on an 8 inch muslin foundation so it has a 1/4 inch seam allowance around it. That eliminates extra bulk when I join the blocks.
2. Use the ugliest (to borrow a word from Terry's colleague) fabrics in various widths.

3. Post your pictures here.

4, Pop the block in the mail to me and I'll collect them to make a charity quilt.

(I already have 48 string blocks made from a previous project, and these can go with those.)

5. Let's show Terry's friend we don't make ugly quilts when we use up our scraps.

6. Deadline: April 30.

7. Leave me a comment here and I'll send you my address.

And just wondering:  What would the rest of you string quilters have said to Terry's colleague?