Something is happening!

A bit of quilting is happening!

I've started so many new things since 2010, it's hard to get anything finished.

Now I'm making some progress on the blue stripes quilt. I think I want this to be big. So far I've just been using leftover strips and I want to keep it that way rather than cutting into fabric especially for this. There always seems to be strips leftover from projects, so it makes sense to use this in the traditional sense of quilting, i.e. using the waste from another project for a quilt!
So 4 more blocks are almost done, just need to be ironed and cropped to size...

My make-shift sewing space - in the living-room once again :) The future quilt room is still awaiting furniture, and right now I've got a big rug drying in there after beating it out in the snow to clean it, so there's hardly enough space to get across the room!


Now that I've moved, my place is much more quilter friendly! Laminate flooring so I can tape my backings to the floor again, and lots'n'lots of light from the south-facing window wall... the future quilt room has westfacing windows - nice light without the colour-fading effect.



I still don't have a lot of time for quilting, what with every night being filled with another activity (I'm learning Norwegian now, what a fun language!), but at least the starting conditions are much improved over the last hole, I mean apartment, I lived in :)

The Strings Are Coming Together

I've completed a few more string-blocks for the blue string-quilt.

I'm starting to get the full picture, now that I can lay out the blocks - that's a fun feeling!


Because of some deadlines (like trying to get the Mystery Quilt ready in time for last Wednesday's guild meeting), this project was put aside, but I'll keep plugging away on it in between other quilts. I've also realized that I need to collect many more blue strips for a big quilt. Luckily, there's no rush!

Jumping On Bandwagon #2 (Strings)

What does this:


this:

and this:

look like??

A string-quilt in progress, of course :)

I've seen so many online, and liked them all, I had to try one! It seemed that you couldn't do anything wrong, some people reportedly just pull fabric strips randomly out of a bag and sew them on.

So I took a stack of scrap paper, cut them down to 8.5"x8.5", and started following the many tutorials I've read about paper-piecing string quilts.

I got about this far -

- yes, two whole seams! - before I decided that I couldn't stand the sound of the needle going through paper and that the smaller stitch-length was taking too long to sew.

So I did it without the paper, just to see if it would work.

It did:


I pressed the two blocks and used the pre-cut paper to square them up.

(here you can see my new cutting mat!)


Here is block #1, pressed and squared-up... I like it ;)


And here are the first two together: (I'm using the same colour for the center strip in all blocks)


I have a lot of blue strips left from previous projects, so this is a great scrap-buster project.

Except....

... now what do I do with the new scraps??? *LOL*