All About Strings, Bright and Beautiful!

I hope you've enjoyed the blog hop so far, it's really gone by fast!  I barely got my project finished on time, but it is done, and I really love it!  This quilt is totally a scrap quilt made from lots of leftover bits and pieces from many projects.

Isn't it colorful?  I've been sewing up scrap blocks for a while, so I had a good stack of them to make the top with.  These blocks are really simple, just random strips from my scrap bin sewn diagonally onto a foundation of telephone book pages.  The pages tear off the back super easy, and it helps keep those diagonal seams from stretching out of shape.  Here's a block before I trimmed it up to 6 1/2 x 8 1/2.

The tricky thing is that if you want to make the diamond pattern that I did, that you need to make half the blocks going one way, and half the opposite.  I had a few too many slanting the wrong way!

Oh, well.  That gives me a good start for the next set of blocks.  You see, my scrap bin still is overflowing, so I'll need to keep sewing these up and make another quilt (or 2 at least).

I thought I would share my secret for making an awesome string quilt.  When you are choosing strips, make sure to put the craziest combinations together that you can.  Seriously, put a brown floral next to a bright stripe!  Then add a pink cat print. 

Christmas fabrics?  Sure, throw them in the mix, too!

Dinosaurs work well, and modern florals are fun.

Baseballs, clocks, bears, anything goes - and when you put it all together, the results are a perfectly scrappy and fun quilt!

I quilted it with a large meander in green thread and I had just enough of this bright apple print for the back.  I found a fun green print for the binding - it has bananas on it, so I think this quilt will be "Fruit Salad".  Come to think about it, a quilt like this is a lot like a salad - lots of good things all chopped up and mixed together to make something wonderful and satisfying.

Thank you, Carla for hosting this fun blog hop! I got lots of ideas for more string quilts so I can use up all my scraps (someday!)   I hope you've all enjoyed my take on making a string quilt.  They really are fun!  Make sure to go see Carla's blog (Creatin In the Sticks) and enter to win a great prize!

Friday Finishes - Scrappy Strip quilt!

I spent this weekend working on quilting up this fun scrappy quilt.

On a whim, I used a vintage pieced top that I was given on the back of it.  The vintage top was pretty badly stained, but just the right size for the back of this.  I had hoped that the stains might wash out, but they didn't.

It still makes a lovely, cuddly and colorful quilt, so I am offering it in my Etsy shop at a good price!

So many fun print!  I bound it with dark green - and quilted it with a nice neutral.  It measures 57 x 6 inches.

String Quilt for Sale!  Sold

I have lots more scraps and lots more telephone book pages to fill.  But I think my next scrap quilt will be something different.  I'll have to look for a pattern and decide.  First I have a few custom projects to get finished, so time to work on those now.  I have several more finished tops to quilt before I will be ready to start a new top anyway - I'm working on those UFO's!

I haven't been great at working on my Crazy Jane lately, but here's a block from last week:

Love how this one came out!

I've been laying low with a busy week and a bit of a cold, but I'm looking forward to a good afternoon in my sewing room today - definitely my happy place!  I'm linking up with Busy Hands Quilts as well as CrazyMomQuilts to show off my finishes.

Wishing you a productive and fun Friday, what are you finishing?

A Good Day of Quilting

Oh yes, today I had a very good day of quilting, indeed. I am up against a deadline, so I didn't think I would enjoy it as much as I did, but I really had a blast! In fact, I couldn't stop having so much fun - but let me start at the beginning and explain... This is the Coos Sand 'n Sea Raffle quilt for 2011. I volunteered to chair the committee. I provided the pattern and asked for guild members to make blocks, and so they did. I had three helpers to put it together, and I decided to quilt it myself. Just for the fun of it. Well that was before March got out of hand, so here we are in April and the quilt needs to be finished this week!

I got my quilt all basted and ready to go yesterday. I even knew how I was going to quilt it. I figured out how much quilting I would need to do each day to finish by Monday. Yesterday I quilted my 20 blocks and was able to quit. Today I quilted 20 more blocks. Then decided to go ahead and finish all the spiderwebs. Then (encouraged by nice comments on my facebook status and picture of work in progress!) I couldn't wait to try the feathers on the star blocks. I was having so much fun, I went back to it after dinner and finished them all.

They were really fun to work on! They are not all perfect, but they look excellent, don't they?

Now all I have to do is quilt the border and bind it. Oh, and add a label.

And here is a frugal quilting tip for you. If you want to make a quilt, but don't want to spend any money yourself, volunteer to work on a project for your guild or other organization. They buy the fabric, you get all the fun, and then they make money on the tickets! Winning situation for everyone!!

Have a happy and weekend and take some time for making something you love!

Pamela