Summer strings

Last summer I began to search the web for string piecing ideas, and came across the Heartstrings website, Bonnie's patterns, and of course, Gwen Marston's Liberated String Quilts. With that huge amount of inspiration, I began my own attempt, piecing blue and green strings on 6.5 inch widths of freezer paper, and using neutrals for the sashing and border.

I deliberately went wonky with this, curving them on the slight bias one way and then another. It was addicting. I had planned for this to be a donation quilt, a "something from nothing" quilt, since it was made from strings from my Mom's stash and my own, but I fell in love with it and couldn't give it away. Besides, I should have pieced it on a foundation, since there's lots of seams in this one, and a donation quilt should be sturdy. So I'm keeping it to machine quilt someday, and send off to college with one son or another.

Then I got out my bag of silk scraps and made this one, which I've shown before. It was inspired by all the doll quilts bloggers were making last summer in Chinese coins/string versions. And I couldn't stop there, so my quilt guild, The Strip Piecers, made our first joint project, the Lobster quilt.

I've had a busy week away from the sewing machine, but I'm hoping to piece some more string quilts soon.