On the table at the beach house (aka my happy place)
What do I do when I have too many projects piling up? Start a new project, of course. Well, maybe it's not a "new" project, but an extension of an older one.
Okay, true confessions time. Remember this lovely, lovely project up on the design wall?
I purposefully rounded up (sometimes waaaaaay up) the amount of fabric I needed so that I would have lots of fun Konas leftover to play with. So I left these up on the wall (what?) and packed up the leftovers (plus a few other yummy Kona colors) to play with in Seaside this week. Maybe a liberated string quilt a la Gwen Marston....
After sewing together strings to make a new piece of fabric, I cut 5" strips at a 45 degree angle.
And then cut the strips into 5'' squares.
I forgot to take a picture of the string blocks laid out on the floor before I came back home for the day. (It's approximately 65 miles from driveway to driveway, so we sometimes pop home if needed. We are headed back this evening for several more days.) I think it's going to be a pretty quilt, BUT -- I keep looking at the pictures of my strings all sewn together and wondering why I didn't quit while I was ahead. They really look gorgeous....
What else have I learned from my day of playing with strings yesterday? "Liberated" quiltmaking can actually be more work. It took a long time to cut the strings, then cut them into shorter strings, resew them back into long strings, then sew them all together. The other thing I learned is you have a lot of wasted fabric when you trim and cut at the 45 degree angle (especially when you throw in a cutting error or two). So now I have all these small bits of fabric already sewn together, which would make wonderful little squares or triangles. Uh-oh! I'm already thinking of another project! I also have lots of little squares and rectangles from evening up my strips, which would make a fun little ticker tape quilt or some other tiny improv quilt. Sometimes my scraps just seem to multiply....
I love the strippy bit of fabric, looking forward to seeing the completed strings quilt. I don't suppose you know all the names of the Kona colours you used? If you do, would you pretty please put them on the photo on flickr? It would be great to know which ones they are.
ReplyDeleteI guess a scrappy kona quilt is in your future.
Kelly :-)
I love the piece of fabric you made to cut your pieces from. Such pretty colors!
ReplyDeleteI look forward to seeing the end result of your sewing and cutting experiment.
It sounds like your off cuts will be like the sour dough bread starter equivalent for a quilt? Fun! :)
I love that huge design wall space you have to work and spread out. And I love all those fabulous kona colors you are working with. The same thing happens to me too - cutting, cutting, cutting, and still you end up with more scraps.
ReplyDeleteHow glorious!!! Strings AND Seaside!!! What's not to love...?! ; )
ReplyDeleteHave FUN and enjy yourself!!! Don't forget to stop and smell the roses too - they're lovely!
Those fabrics are gorgeous! I love beginning new projects also...and it sounds you are sewing in a great location! Keep up the good work...it's lovely!
ReplyDeleteThat is looking really good so far!
ReplyDeleteIt looks beautiful~it'll be well worth the effort. Your projects are always so inspirational!
ReplyDeleteSewing at a beach cabin? Could anything be better? I don't think so (sew)....
ReplyDeleteOh I do like to be beside the seaside!!! (or something like that I can't really remember how that little song goes!). Anyway, how wonderful that you can wander off the the beach house from time to time. I adore the Kona colours you have used and love your first quilt, but I can't wait to see what you come up with while being liberated! It can be rather stressful sometimes, but i think you would get used to it if you did it more often (at least that is what I'm telling myself!). xo
ReplyDeletethis quilt needs to come live at my house!
ReplyDeletethe colors remind me of the ocean and the waves on my feet.
hope you're enjoying yourself!
Lots of gorgeous colours...looks beautiful. The seaside would be a great place to create.
ReplyDeleteGee I wouldn't mind popping in and joining you, way too much fun even if it does seem like more work. I think It's worth it and the colours are great.
ReplyDeleteI really love those colours, and I like how they look at every stage of the process so far. You could easily have called it quits at any previous point - making a quilt with the long strips, or the diagonally-cut strips - and had a fabulous, striking product. I think your 5" squares look great! There' s no way this can go wrong, whatever you choose!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful stripes! Of course, now I am curious to see what happens to the string squares!
ReplyDeleteLove your method for piecing the diagonal squares! Enjoy your time at the beach house.
ReplyDeletelove it! so happy that you realized that isn't waste - you just have more scraps to play with yippeeee!
ReplyDelete