Thursday, November 20, 2008

Sew Frugal, Sew Much Fun!

I followed the directions here. I went through my scrap bin and got out fabrics and ruthlessly cut them up.

If I could, I salvaged a 6" square or two, and a 5" square or two, before cutting the strips called for in the String Quilt directions. I'm going to use the 5" charms to make just a simple charm quilt, one block after the other, and quilted on my short-arm machine. I'm going to take the 6" blocks, make huge nine patch squares, and then make a fractured nine-patch scrappy quilt, and quilt that one on my short-arm also... Stashbusting resulting in two "free" quilts!












But the real fun tonight came after I finished cutting strips. I think I have enough to make two or three of these quilts, at least. That's good, because Karen took one look at this tonight and decided she's making one too!

Here are my strips - varying from 1-1/2" to 2-1/2" in width. A big tangled mess.... but as the author of the directions said, "such potential!"












Here, I've sewn them onto the base 11" square, and it is a bit of a ragged mess.












And here I have squared it up to 10-1/2". Correctly.
























And here, I have squared one up incorrectly. Sigh. (notice the point of the white strip is "off".)












But frugal daughter piped up with the idea of squaring it again, smaller, and making a "pillow cover" for a decorative pillow to match the quilt. Since I'm nothing if not persistent in the error of my ways, later tonight I screwed up a second one. Exactly the same way. That time, I figured out what I did wrong during the squaring up process.... but anyhoo, even the screw-ups can be used!

And here are 8 made correctly, turned into two huge four-patches", and laid side by side. You can really see the pattern forming with the white stripe....












This is way too much fun. I have cookies to bake and floors to clean, and typing to do... and all I want to do is go back upstairs and make some more blocks!

:)

3 comments:

Yvette said...

HEY NOW! I recognize some of those scraps. HA HA!!!!

OK, you are having too much fun over there. I am sew sew jealous. I will have more scraps for you to have more fun. :)

OH.... Don't forget to save some scraps for our 2009 BOM.

Karene said...

WOW !!! That's GREAT !!! Where did you get that pattern, my friend, and why did you invite me over to join in the fun....humphf! Just kidding !!! So I guess a little planning is involved with the white in the middle...hmmmmm ???

Anonymous said...

Aren't the string blocks FUN? I am loving doing them....I'm doing mine a little differently, even though I am following the same quilter's directions.
My squares will be a little smaller, and are sewn straight, not diagonally. Then the blocks will be set on point.
Isn't it a great feeling to use up your stash of scraps!! I want to do one like yours next - what are you using for your foundation?