Catching up to do. Evelyn Sloppy String Quilt reveal

I finished this quilt months ago, but never did show the final product.  I made this quilt for my father.  I was inspired one day when reading JulieKQuilts and seeing her "header quilt."  After learning the quilt pattern, designed by Evelyn Sloppy, came from her Strips and Strings book, I got to work!  This was one of my favorite string patterns EVER!

The quilting was very simple in this quilt.  I used a walking foot and did a lot of stitch in the ditch quilting. 

Here is the back.  It was a huge stash buster!  It is so nice to make such a gorgeous quilt out of "ugly" fabric.

Hopefully I will catch up on more posts soon.  I am feeling stressed after taking a comprehensive exam, so something quilty will surely cheer me up!

Not enough quilting going on.

Life has been busy and different lately.  I probably mentioned I have returned to school, and therefore a big transition is taking place.  My children and I are adjusting to some changes and that has taken me away from my hobby.  I reward myself with quilting after I have finished my papers and homework assignments.  Therefore, I have made some progress on projects.

The last two weeks I have been working on quilting the Evelyn Sloppy string quilt.  All of what I have done has been with a walking foot, and last night I finished enough of the quilting so that I was able to put on the binding.  I will then go back and work on some simple freemotion in the middle border and in the string blocks.

One of my favorite things about the quilting process is how the quilt looks when it is folded.  Strange, right?  When a quilt is just basted, it looks bulky while folded.  The more quilting is finished, the better the quilt looks folded.  When the binding is sewn on and I trim the excess backing and batting from it, it looks awesome!  I feel like I have accomplished something.  What parts of quilting do you enjoy?  Is it a stack of quilt blocks piled up and ready to assemble?  Is it a finished top?  Is it putting on the binding?  Me?  Definitely a pretty folded quilt.

I hope to show you the final project in the next week or so.  Until then, happy quilting!

Working on the back

Yesterday I was able to start the back to my string quilt.  I took out a pile of random pieces of fabric from my bin (my entire fabric collection fits in a Rubbermaid 18 gallon tote) and started squaring and sewing.  So far I have about 50 inches out of about 100 inches...so halfway done!  I work in manageable sections then put everything together.  I like free piecing.  It is a way to use up things and get them gone!  I have amassed some strange pieces of fabric too!

You can see the pile of fabrics in the back.  Nothing really goes together.  No theme here.  Just getting it gone!  As long as there are many pieces like that...lots of scrappy variety...the theme becomes "scrappy" and nearly EVERYTHING works!  It fits with the front of the quilt...everything goes!

Hmmm...doesn't look like a whole lot of matching going on here....  ;-p

String quilt top is finished

Hot off the presses!  I just finished the string quilt top!  It is about twin size???  I am very happy with how it turned out and I think brown worked just fine.  It may have been better with a hunter green but the brown still gives it nice depth (it is for a man anyway...my father will like the brown).  I totally need to get a better way of hanging quilts to photograph but this will have to do for now.

On another note, I need an opinion.  The next quilt top I need to finish is a gift for my sister.  It is inspired by an art piece.  Can I legally show this on my blog?  I see photos of tattoos that are art inspired (the artist is Natasha Wescoat...google her tree of life paintings).  I am excited about this project and need some guidance as to how to make my quilt wider and still fit into the theme but I am not sure if I am allowed to post pictures or not.

String Quilt Border



I have made good progress on making the parts of my middle border.  I wanted to make a 3" finished string border.  To make it a bit easier for me, I used full sheets out of an old phone book.

 Here is the front.

 Then you have to square off the top and each of the sides.  You don't have to square the bottom since it will be trimmed off as you work anyway.

After you square it up, you can chop it off into the size strip you need.  I was able to trim my blocks into 3.5" strips

Here is my pile.  I think I have enough!  It went very quickly with this method.  One issue I did have was with threads pulling away when I tore my newspaper off.  To tackle this issue, I just ran the strips through my sewing machine, sewing a line about 1/8th inch away from the side edges prior to ripping off the paper foundations.  It helped in more ways than one.  These blocks can stretch and get all wonky on you, and sewing the edges helped to prevent any stretching when I was pressing with my iron.  I think it will help too when it comes to sewing the border on the quilt.  I will worry less about a lot of distortion.

Quilt top assembled (correctly)

I took a reader's advice (thank you!!!) and fixed a boo boo in my quilt  Some of the blocks were rotated incorrectly.

I was thinking of using an emerald green for the border but just was not thrilled with it.  This gift is for a man so I need to choose the borders appropriately.  Perhaps a chocolate brown?  I am still not sold on what to do for the border.  I may just follow the pattern but that is so not like me, lol.  Can't make it too easy!

I also started working on another dog mat in patriotic colors.  I will show some of that tomorrow!

Oopsie

So, as I was sewing together my final row of the Evelyn Sloppy string quilt, it dawned on me (way to go for it being so last minute) that I had done my mental math incorrectly.  I had made an extra row!  So, now I have to decide whether to turn this row into another project (perhaps a wheelchair donation quilt?) or make MORE blocks...8 more to be exact...and have enough rows to make the quilt both wider and symmetric.  I need to think about this some more I think.  I have been needing a push to get another donation quilt out....hmmm.  If I made the donation quilt I would need just four more blocks rather than 8.  I suppose I will decide in the next day or two.

Here are the rows laid out on the floor.  I may do my borders a bit differently.  It will definitely have a string border.  I was thinking of a darker resting strip then a string border.  Once I have the quilt top center assembled I will have a better idea.

On a final note, many of you know my Sheltie, Angus, took his Canine Good Citizen test and passed.  I tried to take some pictures after, but taking pics of 5 herding dogs playing is not easy!



My first string quilt

I didnt start the Crumb Patch quilt yesterday.  It was storming really bad so I didnt even want to plug in my precious Viking.  So today I am going to share with you a string project I started just before my youngest son was born.  It took me about 7 months to machine piece and hand quilt.  I think there are about 600 triangles in it so there is well over 1000 pieces.  It is foundation pieced using muslin and uses wool batting.  The quilt is fairly lightly hand quilted (using a grey cotton verigated thread)with a zigzag and then with small stars.  I wanted the tied quilt feeling too so I finished it off by tying it with a neat multicolored 100% cotton yarn.  This quilt is about a twin.  I can't find a picture of the back though.  I usually free piece my quilt backs using larger scrap pieces.  I will have to make a blog post at some point just about that!

I named it Under the Stars.  After some washings, it has become so soft.  I love laying on it.  Right now, it is in my youngest son's room. 

For those of you who have made or like to make scrap quilts, what is your favorite scrappy quilt you have made?

String Quilt Project

While I am working on finishing my flying geese, I thought I might share with you another quilt I have in progress.

Recently I found JulieKQuilts while searching through the blog world.  I saw her header quilt (the picture on the top of the screen) and LOVED it!  It is an Evelyn Sloppy pattern found in this book.  I needed something that would use up some of my strings and little strips.  They were overflowing!  Here are some pictures from my progress so far.

I started with the string blocks using old phone book pages as foundations.  I am making mine larger so I made 56 string blocks for a 7 x 8 layout.  I also used strip piecing methods for the sashing strips.  I made the strips longer so I could cut a bit off the ends to use as the center strip of the 9 patches.

Here are the pieces of the 9 patches all cut up.

Here is part of the first row of blocks.  I have since completed one row and a few blocks of the second row.

Soon I will have all of the flying geese blocks done.  I will be making 144.  Also, I ordered a nice blue fabric from connecting threads for the borders of Crumb Patch.  That has been shipped and I am excited to recieve it.  I will soon be posting block assembly information for Crumb Patch and will be adding it to the tutorial.  The list of posts about Crumb Patch can be found on the right side of your screen.