A story of strings

A few years back, I made this blue and yellow string quilt:

Before I chose the blue/light blue borders I had planned on using up the extra strings to make a piano key border.  I made the border and auditioned it with the quilt:

I decided the piano keys were too much, so I rolled them up and set them aside, thinking maybe I could use them on something else someday.

I came across them during the big sewing room tidy-up and knew that the time had come to make them into a small quilt.  I did a little slice and dice and removed the more subdued blues and paler yellows, and added in a few brighter shades:

Then I combined them with some royal blue border strips that were leftover from another project that I can't recall, and came up with this:

I just knew those strips would come in handy someday.   I find it hard enough to throw away even the smallest scrap, and I think I might have to start even saving those.

Another find in the sewing room was a charm pack of Aneela Hoey  "Posy" fabrics.

I added in about 20 charms that I cut from my stash, and made this Springtime quilt:

String Fling

It's been a while since I made my first string quilt.  It was totally scrappy and the only sorting I did was to separate the lights and darks.

It was a great lesson to me that truly, anything goes in a string quilt.  It had everything from batiks to 30's repros, solids, stripes, florals, you name it.

Since then, whenever I have strips leftover from cutting or piecing, I  add them to a bin for future string quilts.

A fellow blogger, recently volunteered to collect  half  log cabin blocks made with "happy, bright, summer flower colors" for some charity quilts she is making.  I figured  I could come up with a "few" strips, so I pulled out the string  bin to have a look.

      Did I mention that "adding" strips to the bin means opening it up, stuffing them in and then closing it up quick?

I guess these strips have been building up a bit longer than I thought.  Anyhow, the requested blocks were supposed to have a yellow fabric in the block corner, so I started with that and picked the first strip for inspiration.

Then I pulled out a bunch of other strips that I thought would fit the bill.

Before I knew it, I had two happy, bright, flowery blocks to send off to Jeanne for her wonderful donation work.

A very enjoyable way to spend some quilting time, and the result was a couple of "free" blocks to go to a good cause.   In the interest of full disclosure, I'll add that after working with the soft neutrals of my last project, it was refreshing to get back to my beloved  jewel tones.

The Blues (and the Yellows)

One of my favorite color combinations is blue and yellow.  I went to a quilt store recently to make a specific purchase for sashings and borders for a quilt that is not blue and not yellow and yet this pack of 10 inch blue and yellow squares managed to get purchased as well.

I don’t have a plan for them right now, but they followed me home like a stray puppy follows a little boy.

A favorite project that I did once with blue and yellow was this String quilt:

If you’ve never made a string quilt, consider trying one.  They are quick and easy (some might even call them “mindless”) to create.  They are great for using up long “strings” of fabrics and the sky is the limit. In my blue and yellow quilt pictured above, I just made sure that the center string was blue.

Pictured below is another string quilt I made using every color of scrap I had and just arranging them by Lights and Darks.

There are many websites with detailed instructions for going about making a string quilt.  Here is one by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville.  Here is another.  And here is a third one.

String quilts make great group quilts because the blocks are trimmed to size after they are made. Many individuals can contribute blocks and they all fit together nicely into one quilt.

There is a wonderful group of quilters on the Internet who  make  Heartstring quilts and donate them to charities.   They have a donation system designed so that quilters can donate blocks, tops or fabrics for backings.  There is a photo gallery filled with inspiration, and a yahoo group for discussion and help.

Think “String”!