Scrappy Sunday

I managed to get to the sewing machine before Lucas settled in for his afternoon snooze today and quickly sewed up another 6 string blocks.  I think I'll move on to making sashing strips and 9 patches in my next crumb/string session.

Even just making a few blocks a week and these stacked up quite quickly.  I have 30 string blocks (8.5" square) and 48 crumb blocks (6" square) since starting this process two months ago.

Pieced another 4 crumb blocks today.  Tonya's book is in the mail so I will get back to trying out more letters and words when it arrives.

My crumb bin is filling up fast from all the scrap trimming I've been doing.  Some of the quilters on the Liberated Quilters Yahoo Group mentioned that they sort and bag their small fabric bits by colour and keep them with the larger pieces and yardage in their stash.  That would certainly make it easier to make a more co-ordinated looking crumb quilt.  Mine is looking more like a dog's breakfast really and not a good representative of what can be done with crumb blocks.  There are some real beauties in the pics at the Crumb-Along Flickr Pool.  I have to say, though, that the very idea of sorting out the crumbs by colour isn't very appealing to me.  It might make a good take-along chore at Christmas time when I'll be away from my sewing machine and slowly going mad from the withdrawal.

And the final choice on the Shady Lanes borders?  I didn't like the black floral afterall.  I figured that out after walking past the display just a few times.  I thought it looked too dark and with none of the scrap fabrics in it, it made me wrinkle my nose every time.  I've decided to go really simple.  Some of the neutral, the dark red stripe, the half-square triangles and some more neutral to stabilize the sawtooth piecing.  The last time I had piecing that went to the edge of the quilt, I lost my points when the quilt was squared and trimmed.

Tomorrow I'll start adding borders.  Tonight, I'm going to spend some time exploring in my 2" strip bin, to see if I can come up with 100 different co-ordinated fabrics for the 100-patch block.  I don't get to start sewing anything new until I finish a couple of projects, but it's a good sitting in front of the television activity.  At least it keeps me from snacking.

Scrappy Saturday

Six more string blocks today, bringing my block count up to 24.  Another six blocks and I will move on to making sashings and nine patches.  The pickings in my string box are getting really blah - down to mostly neutrals and greens.  I had to supplement with fabrics from my 1.5" strip box, further solidifying in my mind that 1.5" should be my minimum string size.  These blocks were far more pleasurable to piece than the ones in which I used all those really skinny strings. 

I sliced up enough sashing strips and squares for another six Shady Lanes blocks.  Also did my daily 15 minutes of scrap taming.  So far, the results are less than dramatic.  But I've learned from past experience, that when trimming for 15 minutes on a daily basis, it's a good idea not to analyze how much is getting done versus how much is left to do - especially not in the first few days.

There's some really fun fabrics in the scrap pile.  Here's a pic of a sweet little lady bug fabric.  Let's see, how many bugs do we consider cute enough to like them on fabric?  Lady bugs, butterflies, dragonflies... yup, that's about it.  So far, I've found all three of those on fabrics in the scrap bin.  Haven't come across any creepy spiders on Hallowe'en fabrics yet and knowing the ladies who gave me these scraps, I don't think I'm likely to find any.

The best find today was this strip of googly eyes on black.  Isn't it a hoot?  Wish I had known I had this when I was making my fat cat in the stash crumb block (pic below).

I am definitely going to have to make another cat block and use some of those eyes in it. Just thinking about it is making me giggle.

I pulled out a red and cream quilt that needs to be trimmed, labeled, and bound - the last of the quilts that far along in my unfinished pile.  I want to make a striped bias binding for it - I think that will be really effective on my two colour quilt.   To trim the quilt and make bias binding requires some room to work and that necessitated a clean-up of the cutting area, which is set up on my kitchen counter.  I just can't seem to maintain the habit of tidying up at the end of each sewing session.  My sewing table and my kitchen table are piled high again.

String Block Recovery n' Crumbing

I figured out how to save the string block that I accidentally trimmed a 1/2" too short.  Here's the block measuring 8" x 8.5".

I sliced it in half through the middle stripe.

And sewed in a new fabric strip, lining up the pieces at the centre point so the two halves weren't too off kilter from each other (which would have made squaring it a bit of a problem).

Ta-dah!  Newly trimmed 8.5" square string block.  I had less than 1/8" to trim off to make it the right size.  No quilting gremlins throwing their weight around today it would seem.

I spent the next three hours making crooked log cabin blocks for my crumb project - Jo's post on the latest block tutorial is here => Crumb-Along Week 6.  I still have about an inch of fabric needed on each one of my blocks before it's the right size.  I just ran out of steam before I could finish them.  I think I picked up a cold or something visiting relatives last week... there were some suspicious sniffles under all the exuberant hugs....  anyway, giving in to the overall feeling of malaise (I just really feel yucky), I spent the rest of the day under an unfinished quilt attaching binding by hand and watching taped television on the PVR.

I could really use some home-made chicken soup right now.

String Blocks and Crumbly Creativity

It's a day for strings and crumbs... and creative messiness.  It's times like this that I think I would love a bigger table, or an L-shaped one.  But a bigger table might just result in a bigger mess.  Of course, it might help if I took everything off the table before I start with crumbs and strings.

I made six 8.5" string blocks, which should have brought my total blocks so far to eighteen.

But I discovered that I had trimmed one block a whole 1/2 inch too short.  I have a new ruler with the half inch guide on two sides and it got turned around more than once as I trimmed.  Usually I notice when I've switched the 1/2 inch to the flip side of a block but I didn't catch that in time to save one block.  I think I can save this one by slicing it through the centre stripe and adding in another fabric through the middle.

I've also discovered the really skinny strings are more trouble than they're worth when making string blocks - it takes a lot of them to get across the foundation block, which bulks the whole thing up with seams.  I pulled the strings that are less than an inch wide out of the box and put them aside, reducing my string stash by half.  Keeping strings that small seems like one of my dumber ideas.  Maybe I'll try fabric knitting or crocheting with them.  I see a rag rug in my future.  And if that doesn't work out, I'll use them as stuffing in a pillow.   The last time I sat down to make crumb blocks, I dug some skinny strips from the crumb bin and started joining them into strips sets about 6.5" long.  These strips are about the size of an adhesive bandage.  They measure 1" wide and range in length from 3" to 6".

When I've joined enough to measure at least 6.5", I iron the heck out of them, then subcut them into 1.5" wide strips.  I've made a small stack of these and find them to be a good mindless leader n' ender task.

As the strings from my string blocks get trimmed off, I put the short bits in with the subcuts.  It's going to be months before I have enough to work with, but I've got my next crumb quilt in planning all lined up and a new leader n' ender to keep me chain piecing.  It's inspired in part by Tonya's Lego Blocks project, Riel's Random Rail Fence project and my recent crumb-along piecing, and it's going to give me a good reason to dig into my 1.5" strip stash, which by-the-way, is going to be my new minimum string size.

Tomorrow is going to be devoted entirely to making Crumb-Along blocks.  Maybe my next word block too.  I'm thinking dance or laugh are good candidates for words to live your life by.

Traditional Tuesday and String Blocks too

I made the next block for the Traditional Tuesday Sampler and I blew it by not trimming my 1.5" strips down to 1" strips for the block.  Aaarrrrgggghhh!   I was so delighted by the selection of browns and pinks in my strip box, I completely forgot about the cutting instructions.  Given my perfectionist tendencies, it won't surprise anyone that I plan to make these again tomorrow.  This time, let's see if I can get it right.  (Sigh)  At this rate, I'll have a entire pieced backing made up of rejected blocks.

I made the next row of string blocks for Donna's string quilt w/ 9 patches - at six blocks a week, I'll be done making the string blocks in another six weeks.  Then I can move on to the strip sashing and the teeny 9 patches.

The strings don't seem to be reduced at all.

Monday's block is done - Bring on the Crumbs

It's Monday, and that means it's time for the next instalment of Modern Monday.  I find it's just as easy (almost easier) to make two blocks instead of just one.  Are you making these wonderful blocks?  I started a Flickr Group Pool  - please join and upload your pics.

I pulled out the crumbs and strings for tomorrow and may work a little on Crumb-Along blocks tonight.  Jo's progress on hers has been amazing, and I feel so far behind.  I cut some 2" squares to make more wonky stars. That's how I want to border my crumb quilt.  I only made two star blocks last week and never got back to it.  Now that I've got some 2" neutral squares ready to work with, I can make stars on a whim.  It's fairly easy to find the colourful bits for star points and centres in my crumbs and they work up really quickly.

Or, I might work on the String Quilt w/ 9 patches instead.  I pulled out three strips to use as the centre stripe in making my next six string blocks.  (Six seems to work out just right from a time perspective for me and it's the number of string blocks I need for each row.)  These fabrics are wonderful, at least two of them are from Sandy Gervais collections (I'm not sure which one(s) anymore).  I starched my foundation fabric blocks.

It finally cooled down enough to be able to iron the flannel without dying of heat prostration.  I cleaned up my cutting area, trimmed my daily quota of HSTs and put the final stitches into the binding of one quilt (and started stitching down the binding on another UFO).

Crumb-Along - Week 2 (Stars n' Hearts)

This week, we're making stars and hearts.  Jo's pictorial and instructions are posted here.

So far my only complaint is that they weren't posted at 3:00 am - when I had a bout of insomnia.  Just kidding!  Jo is doing an amazing job of leading, encouraging and contributing to the delinquency of quilters and all while she's celebrating two new additions to her family: Betty (a sassy little featherweight) and Mildred (a sturdy reliable Singer).  I hope they are sleeping through the night.  Congratulations Jo!

The Crumblers have begun uploading pics of their blocks to the Crumb Along Group Pool on Flickr and visiting each others' blogs (especially those linked at the bottom of Jo's instruction posts) and leaving encouraging comments.  (Don't forget to check your comment settings Crumblers.)

My approach to crumb quilting is to grab a handful of crumbs and not worry about the colours.  There's a real hodge-podge here: country, civil war repros, brights, novelties.  I figure it will all work out in the end.  When I have enough blocks made, I'll put them on the design wall and see if I need more of a particular colour at that time.  I had fun with the heart blocks.  I started out cautiously and made two red ones.

Then I made a pink one.

I think this is my favourite one.

And I made two stars.  They went together so slick!  I'm really pleased with how wonky they are.  I stayed away from my cutting mat, my ruler and my rotary cutter this time and it worked perfectly!  I even stayed away from the iron, proceeded by finger pressing, so the trips to the ironing board were few and far between.

I can see myself making a lot more of the star blocks.  They were a lot of fun, and the seams butted into place without pressing.  I only stopped at this point because I had promised myself I could get started on the string quilt blocks.  I went fishing in my 2" strip bin and pulled out a red, a yellow, and an orange strip to get started.  And when I couldn't decide on one, I just shrugged and used them all.

And I got 6 string blocks made in hardly any time at all.  Donna had suggested starching my foundation fabrics and that worked like a dream!  A pic of the quilt I'm going to make and Donna's advice for proceeding on the string blocks w/ 9patches is here.

The clean up phase.  Honestly, if I didn't have so many UFOs that need finishing, labeling, binding, etc, I think I'd just leave the crumbs and strings out and keep having fun.  But I have a list of must-do work and a pile on my kitchen table waiting for it`s turn at the sewing machine.  The rather optimistic deadline I`ve set for this work is this weekend.  So I reluctantly put a stop to the new blocks.  Would you believe my string box is big enough to accomodate both bags of finished blocks!

And here, it's all back on the shelf and waiting for my next crumbing session.

I think my cat ate a few fabric snippets off the floor, he's been walking around clearing his throat for the last half hour.

Donna's String Quilt w/ 9-patches

I keep telling myself I have so many unfinished things I could work on...should work on... but I have an itch - the kind of itch that drives you crazy - an itch to start a string quilt project. I figure that if I make a few string blocks every Tuesday (Crumb Along Day) that it will be a very efficient use of my time, since the strings will be pulled out then anyway..... and I have that set of old faded cotton bed-sheets that is crying out to be used as foundation fabric. (I was going to give them to my friend to use as drop cloths for painting but this would be so much more fun, at least for me.)

My newest project is inspired by a pic of a finished quilt posted to the Stashbuster Group on Yahoo by Donna D. It really called my name. I have a box full of strings and my 1.5" strip box is overflowing (the lid won't close). I love those tiny 9-patches made from 1.5" strips! I sent Donna an email asking her if she had some procedural advice for making this scrappy beauty, and if I could post her advice and the pic to my blog. To my delight, she agreed. Donna's reply is below.

Hi Michele! So glad you liked my string quilt.


As far as how to proceed: first you collect a hundred jillion strips. Mine ranged in width from 1" up to 2". Most were 1.5" or larger -- the 1" strips can be interesting but don't add much width so it takes a lot longer to finish a block. The strips don't have to be even; if they are wider at one end than the other it can give an interesting wonky effect. The black strips in the middle of my blocks were all 1.5 inches wide.


My foundations were cut 8.5 inches because that was the width of my ruler. I used CHEAP muslin, which I starched, or the ugliest fabrics from my stash -- how did I end up with that fabric? Surely I never bought anything that ugly!


Start sewing! I lay the center strip down on top of the center of the foundation square, then grab a strip, lay it right sides together over the black strip, and stitch away! I like to make a batch of 5 or 6 blocks together so I can chain piece. When I've sewn a strip to one side of the black strips in the batch, I cut them apart and sew a strip to the other side of the black strip. This way I sew two strips onto each block at a time. Then I get up and press them all and repeat the process.
When you get to the corners of the blocks you can use triangles, or your wider strips. Try not to use narrow strips on the very corners or it will make for very thick seam allowances.


Every 20 blocks or so I would stop and make the Rail Fence sashing blocks and the mini 9-patches. If I leave them all for the end it gets too boring.


I highly recommend this tutorial for the mini 9-patches: Making Mini 9-patches Tutorial


Using this method you make them bigger, then cut them to size, and they come out perfect every time! I know 9-patches sound easy but when each little piece is only 1.5 inches they slip & slide and I couldn't get them all the same size to save my life. Bonnie's method saved my sanity.


Hope this helps! Write back if you need any more help, or if you want to share some pics!


Donna D