Strings and progress with things

First the progress part of this post...Monday I mentioned I was working with these fabrics.  Today I show you that I made progress on this little quilt. The pattern says to cut into rectangles to make these blocks. I chose to make strips and then cut into the block size. I hope to finish piecing to show you the flimsy on Monday.

Here is the strings part of the post.  I often mention how my string mess collection has gotten out of hand and from time to time I sew up a few more. I'll never get caught up but I'll keep trying:)  I am not sure if I will snowball the corners like I did previously or choose something different.  I sew different width of strings and then trim to make consistent size blocks.  No hurry on these so don't look for a finish for a long long time, it's just a filler type project when I have the time/desire to make a few more.

Accuquilt is having 12 Days of Christmas sales, a new sale every day!  

(I don't normally post every day but I'll try to do that for this sale so you can snag something for yourself for an early Christmas present. Here is the first sale only for 12/13/24...

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS (12/13) -- Get a FREE Anti-Static Spray ($14.99 value) with $50 purchase (Use Code: FREESPRAY)  (affiliate link-there is no extra charge to you for using this link)

Have a great weekend and don't forget to hop over and get some inspiration at these linky parties--

Finished or Not Friday, TGIFF, Off The Wall, Beauties Pageant and Oh Scraps!

It'Snow Lie

It's snow lie, I have been working hard at getting snowman table runners finished and into my Etsy shop!  I took these to quilt retreat a couple weeks ago. I kitted them up at home. Meaning I had cut the triangles and stenciled the snowflakes on at home. The applique of faces and piecing these occurred at retreat.  

Upon returning home I quilted them and got the binding done and listed and sold this one already! That's okay as I worked on three of these, so today I will quilt up another.

Easy but effective quilting was done. Straight lines parallel to the outer edge in the border for this one.

This one too was started at home, worked on at retreat and then finished at home:)

I stitched the outer border a little different on this one since I could follow the straight lines of the check.  I also worked on three of these. 

Yesterday was a fun day, in the morning I sew red strings onto phone book pages. These will eventually end up in pieced backings for snowman table runners. In the afternoon two local ladies came to look at table runners and they each bought several. So thankful for them as I now have projects planned for this week:)

In the evening I started this pumpkin/crow stitchery while watching TV.  It's a pattern by This & That pattern company.

Linking with

  Slow Sunday Stitching

Oh Scrap!

Design Wall Monday

Monday Musings 

Sew and Tell

10/8/23-10/11/23...   ACCUQUILT DAYS SALE! -- 30% off GO! Dies, GO! Qube Products, and select GO! Fabric Cutters (use code: AQDAYS)

Help-my strings are swallowing me!

I am drowning in scraps and it's time to work on some of them.  This weekend the grandsons came over on Saturday. They spent some time with grandpa and then I asked if they wanted to sew. The youngest who is now10 said okay when I told him he could learn to use the sewing machine. After teaching him the safety things about the machine I thought he would be good at piecing strings onto phone book pages. I was right, he caught on quickly. 

I pressed the strings during the process and he made two blocks quickly. After I trimmed them up he asked if there was a way he could put the two together and make a tiny pillow.  So that is what we did, he wanted me to sew them together, then he turned it and stuffed it with scrap batting I cut into smaller pieces.

He wasn't quite done sewing yet, he wanted to make a couple more and make a small quilt to match. We forgot to get the photo of that, but it looked the same.  He took them home and gave them to his little sister for her dolly!  Before he left he said I didn't know sewing could be so fun!!   His older brother wanted to try this method out and he got one block made and agreed we could continue another day.  They just made my day:)  

With all those strings laying out and making a giant mess in the room I continued making string orange and gold blocks on Sunday and Monday, so relaxing and fun. But I won't run out of strings any time soon!!  I was planning on using these for fall runner backings. When my hubby saw them he thought they should be made into a quilt instead. We'll see.

The squares on top have been worked on last week and will eventually be a donation quilt.  Yesterday I sewed up 10 more green blocks, working my way toward a finish.  I also cut up a bunch of patriotic scraps and pieced them into a backing for this runner.  

Even though it didn't make even the smallest dent in the strings/scraps it felt good to finally be using some.  I have a feeling there are several people out there in the drowning boat with me...am I right?  Well if you are looking for me and can't find me come on over and look in the string bin! Perhaps you could even press some strings for me while you are here, hehe. 

I'll be linking up with Wednesday Wait Loss, Midweek Makers and Put Your Foot Down.

Projects of all kinds

Not a lot of motivation to stick with any one project so I am jumping back and forth on several. And then instead of working more on those already started I start another, LOL

A few weeks ago I acquired another Accuquilt die, the 6 1/2" tumbler and wanted to give it a try. So I went to my fabric donation cupboard and pulled a focus fabric, the black flowered one, and 4 coordinating ones. And started cutting with no real plan of how big, I can always cut more tumblers as I go. 

After subcutting a 7"x WOF of each fabric and layering them I cut several tumblers and laid them out and discovered I was only going to have enough of the coordinating ones to do a small baby size quilt. Here is the start of it. I need to cut more tumblers again. 

Progress has been made with the scrappy string snowball blocks also. I added the blue and red ones this week. I am pretty sure I will add a small neutral sashing between the columns. That will aid in keeping the bulk down as there are lots of seams in each block. 

Lots more hats have been machine knitted too! I put three strands of a skinny 2/24 weight yarn together and get lots of fun different colored hats.  This yarn had been donated to me several years ago by a person I only met twice, she was moving out of state and couldn't take it with. She gave it to me for the purpose of making items to donate. There were 3 garbage bags full of big cones of this yarn. It just feels so good to finally have time and desire to whip out these hats. At this time I have knitted 60 hats since Christmas Eve day! It takes about 20-25 minutes to make one. There are 40 in this photo.

Here is one hanging on the machine, you are looking at the back side. The part that goes around your ears is double thickness. This one is ready to take off the machine, I use a double eye needle with double the strands of yarn and then pull it up tight after I get all the stitches off the machine. 

The other night I decided I better get to finishing up my hand knitted sock so I finished the heel/gusset last night. 

Linking with:

NTT

Finished or Not Friday

Whoop Whoop Friday

TGIFF
Beauties Pageant

My first block for RSC17

I definitely need to work on my string bins and bags. Yes my bin is too full, so I now have 3 bags in addition!!  For the first block in purples I decided to tape pages of a small phone book together making a 6" x 15" block and stitching my strings to it.  Here are the two I have done now.  I don't have a particular setting picked out yet as there are a few different ones I could do. So I may have to backtrack later to make more blocks of each color, I'll just play it by ear for now. I also don't have a lot of purple strings for some reason, and I love purple!

Linking with ScrapHappy and Oh Scrap.

Blue Strings

Happy Valentine's Day!!
I have goal #4 done for the first quarter goal at FAL.  You can see all my goals here that I listed for the first quarter of 2016.

I chose to sew strings from my stash to a muslin base for this quilt. I started these blocks way over a year ago, maybe more than 2!  I only had to piece 4 of them to get it finished when I picked it up again and that was sometime early 2015. So then it moved onto the 'to be quilted' pile until now. It feels great to have it ready to donate. Some of my latest donation ones will be split between a nursing home and Project Linus.  One would think my string stash would be depleted by now with all that I have been showing you, but NO they are not.

 I figured a little pop of red binding would pull it all together-I mean really it didn't have enough color yet, did it, ROFLOL

Linking to the FAL when it goes live at the end of the quarter.  Today linking to Oh Scrap

And don't forget to sign up for the Craftsy Giveaway here, scroll to the bottom and click on the link to enter. Some great prizes!

A few stringy days

Yes I am working with my strings/strips, trying to get this mess controlled (at least a little bit).  It's all Connie's fault!!!!!  She knows I am just kidding her :-)  She inspired me to get them out and use them by sewing them to phone book paper, I have never liked paper piecing just for the fact I HATE tearing off the paper. But I am here to tell you if you have felt that way try this method as it tears off so quick easy and clean.  I used a short stitch length of 1.7 and a Jeans needle.

I drew a line down the middle of the paper point to point, laid 2 ride side together fabrics at that line and stitched 1.4" seam. I like to press after each strip.

Keep sewing, flipping and pressing until you have the paper covered, and trim. I could only get a 7 3/4" sq. from my phone books.  I started Sunday and was able to whip through 11 blocks, I thought I was doing pretty good for an afternoon of work. Monday morning I was able to do 16 more and 12 more in the afternoon!!  I tore off the papers from the blocks last night.  I now have a design in mind and hope to get it all finished up this week into a lap size quilt.

This is how my design wall looks this morning, I am really liking what I see!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, we sure did, our son and daughter in law came down on Christmas(a day earlier than planned) and our daughter and her 2 boys came over. 

And now we are all onto a productive 2015 very soon, right?

Check out the linky parties this week-located on my left side bar.

Editing to say the inspiration for this string quilt came from Quilting is more fun than housework. I just discovered her string quilt and wanted to give her credit.