More Strings

Rachel at Stitched In Color has given me permission to repost the photo of her Ziggy Strings Quilt.  I saw this on Google+ and borrowed 2 ideas from it for my newest string quilt.  1) I love the white strip that runs between each color.  I like how it defines the zig zag even more than the color change.  2)  I love that the blocks are rectangles instead of squares.

Rectangles made me think of paper, and the pile of junk mail inspired the recycling.

I was asked after my last post about a tutorial.  Here's what I'm doing:

White strip face up, aligned corner to corner.   I did pin that down so it wouldn't shift.   First color strip face down.  Sew 1/4 inch from edge.

Finger press seam open.  Add next strip.

Continue adding strips out to the corner, being sure that they extend past the paper edge.

Press with a dry iron.
Be sure to keep the iron on the fabric.
I did get some ink transfer when I wasn't paying attention and the iron hit part of a page that came from a standard printer rather than the glossy advertising.

Flip it over and trim to the size of the paper.

Only tricky thing is remembering that since these are rectangles, you do have to make a "Left" and a "Right" version.

Since I decided on a lap quilt, I'm going for 8 pages x 8 pages which will finish at 64 x 84.  I'll need 8 Lefts & 8 Rights

I'm not sure that that this technique is superior to any other way to do it, particularly since there is that extra step of ripping away the foundation piece later.

Before you decide on this approach, check out the tutorial (top right on my page, also on this link ) where I did a Quilt As You Go variation for strings.

This project may take a while as the strings I've collected don't really work with the color scheme in my head.   More to come.