Is it me, or do 'they' lie?

I really don't believe understand statements I read that go something like, 'There's a game on tonight. I'll get the binding sewn down while I watch.' Unless the games go on for 3 to 4 weeks, I can't quite wrap my head around how anything can be bound that quickly!

Or is it me? This is an example of my binding stitch. Is it so much smaller than the rest of the world's? Is that why it took me weeks to finish the binding on this one?

Okay, so "this one" is a spiderweb string quilt made from a robe my mother made for me, and that I wore until it no longer held together and I could no longer mend it (that's the dark 'star' centers). The blue fabric is a mystery; I have no idea where it came from, but I had miles of it (already cut to that width) and I was determined to use it up. The pink was fabric I bought at least 20 years ago when I was new to quilting and felt I needed to build my stash with some basic solids. Bored with it now, so in it goes! The center of each octagon (and the filler strips) is comprised of pastels that complemented the robe fabric, alternating with B&W fabrics.


My thought initially was that I'd quilt the filler strips with feathers. Despite having free-motioned feathers all over a previous quilt,









it didn't stick with me and my attempt this time looked like sh.. horrible. The scribbles over the attempted feathers really are an improvement!

Wasn't thrilled with the meandering either: once I got to the dark fabric, I couldn't see where I'd been. On the other side/other set of filler strips, I just did straight lines in the dark fabrics, simple shapes in the light, used one strip for my label, and lost interest in the whole idea by the time I got to the pale green. More straight lines it is!

I've fallen in love with this funky, wave-ish border pattern. It's one I can do in any direction, so I didn't have to stop at every turn and orient the quilt. It's very forgiving too, and accordions nicely to fit whatever room has been allotted.

For those trying to suss out this pattern, here's a glimpse of my design wall right now (yep, that blue fabric again), followed by the tools of the trade and the templates I made from the phonebook cover. I'm fairly certain I simply eyeballed the dimensions of the center wedge. Perhaps if I had been more scientific about it, the octagons would line up better. Matters not--it's a string/scrap quilt!

An individual triangle, string pieced (strung?) (seen from the back, with most of the phonebook paper torn away), and 2 triangles joined to create one block:

Phonebooks are great for this project. They're free, for one, and the paper tears very easily when you're picking it out from the finished flimsy. My paper is so old (2004) that it frequently tore apart and fell off before I got the triangles sewn to each other!