Monday, September 01, 2008

Strip party

The TTT gang (Trailer Trash Tuesday) has been accumulating strips of fabric for some time in anticipation of making sting/strip quilts. We decided we'd meet on Saturday and Sunday this weekend at the clubhouse to make our quilts.

The construction method for strip/string quilts involves sewing the stings onto a foundation -usually muslin. It's a great quilt method for using up scraps.

Betsy wasn't sure how she'd like just using random strips to make a quilt block so she controlled her quilt a bit by making each block in the same color family. She also was concerned about putting blocks together without seams matching. Using this rail fence setting solved that issue. (all photos clickable for a larger view)



Maureen used a beautiful autumn color palette. She didn't fish into the string stash much. Instead she brought a lot of her own cut strips in order to achieve the look she wanted.



Frances found a book with a quilt she really liked and used that photo as her guideline. Once the blocks are joined together she will add rick-rack along the seam lines. It will make a wonderful baby quilt.



Virginia was our sewing star this weekend. She actually finished the top completely! I believe her initial plan was to make dark and light blocks, but after getting several dark blocks made she decided she really liked them and continued with the darks. It is a very rich looking quilt.



Somehow I missed getting photos of Joanne's and Jolene's quilts. I'm hoping that Karen will have some photos on her blog (here) Since I don't have quilt photos, here are photos of the actual makers.

Here's Joanne...



And here's Jolene (with Virginia in the background)




Karen and I both saw a quilt pattern in the current issue of Quilter's Home and independently we each decided to use that for our quilt. Instead of sewing strips to completely cover the foundation, the strips are sewn along the sides and the top. It was Karen's idea to use black and white squares as the foundation and bright colors as the strips. Here's Karen's.


After spending day one sewing my black&white/bright blocks, I got to thinking that I might want to try using a bright as my foundation and use black & white strips. I cut some brights at home that night and on Sunday made three big blocks that way. I then combined the two types of blocks together in this quilt. I think I would have liked using the bright foundation with b&w strips for the entire quilt, but I decided to just leave it like this. I think I'll call it tic-tack-toe.


As usual we had a ball. We all work so well together!

5 comments:

Maureen said...

Thanks for posting all the pictures. They really look great. I love your Tic Tac Toe.
Maureen

Judy Heyward said...

Great quilts, girls! Such a variety and what a great way touse all of those strip scraps.

Debra Dixon said...

The string quilt is my very favorite scrap quilt. You can never go wrong!

Helen in the UK said...

Followed a link to these pictures from the HeartStrings group. Wow - what a wonderful feast of string quilts!! Thanks for sharing :)

Anonymous said...

I love the quilts that you made! A friend of mine sent me a link to this blog because she saw that you used my quilt pattern from Quilter's Home magazine called "Red Zinger." In the magazine it was done with selvages. I am delighted to see how you were so creative with the idea. I didn't even think of making one as a string quilt! You are so cool!