Stringin' along

I cannot open my blog one more day to the sight of TFI. This has been sitting in Drafts; time to finish my thought and get it published!

I've been playing with more "neutrals", still getting comfortable with Bonnie Hunter's definition of the term. I also wanted to try a new-to-me technique of making string blocks: using a fabric foundation square instead of telephone book pages. The nice thing about string blocks for donation quilts: there's no wrong answer!

I had a set of cotton sheets that were literally threadbare. I decided to cut the sections that still held together into 10" foundation squares (I was following the guidelines for Heartstring blocks). That, however, left me with a nekkid bed, so rather than go out and buy another set of sheets, I pulled out an unused set from the linen closet. Bad news: they were too big for the mattress (queen vs double). Good news: they were striped.

The ensuing project involved tucking up excess side fabric so I didn't destroy the elasticized edges. If you have the Spatial Manipulation gene, you can probably picture exactly what I did to fit the bottom sheet to a smaller (less wide, but same length) mattress. If you don't have that gene, no amount of words will ever clearly explain how I did it. Suffice it to say: thank goodness they were striped. I now have a new set of sheets on the formerly-nekkid bed, and thus was created (from the queen-minus-double-bed excess) plenty of 2" red strips for the centers of the Heartstring blocks.

I wanted to play with setting the neutral fabrics at right angles to the dark fabrics, but I didn't want to make a full square of neutral strings, a full square of dark strings, cut each in half and sew a neutral half to a dark half to create a whole square again. (Whew! I'm tired just thinking about it!)

Instead, I ironed each foundation square on the diagonal. (A quick press on the folded square seemed less distorting than dragging a pencil point along the fabric.) Then I started sewing down my neutral strips in the "usual" way: place a strip face-up in the center, another face-down along one side of the center strip, and sew that seam. Flip top strip over to face-up, iron. Continue along each raw side until foundation is filled.

The white triangle is a little skimpy, but I knew I'd be trimming this to 9.5"

For the right-angled neutrals, I cut the strips so they'd lie only as far as the pressed diagonal line, no further. In fact, as I went along and started doing some simple math, I realized the strips could end up to 1/2" from the diagonal. That helped squeeze more life out of random assortment of lengths and sizes.

To apply the center red strip, I needed to mark the line along which it would have to be laid. A 1/4" seam would then be made along that edge of the center strip. The simple math mentioned above looked like this:
2" strip = 1.5" finished = .75" finished on each side of the diagonal line
In order to have a seam 3/4" from the diagonal, the raw edge must lie 1/2" from the diagonal (with the body of the strip away from the center).

At this point in construction, a pencil was the best bet. A long ruler is best for this, one that's longer than the diagonal of the square, certainly! Line up both ends of the diagonal at the 1/2" line, and draw a line.

Some of the strips came right to that 1/2" leeway margin I had. It's enough though--they'll be sewn securely in the 1/4" seam to come.

Time for the center red strip. Lay it face-down along the pencil line (body of the strip away from the center!)

My red fabric doesn't have a right or wrong side. Don't be fooled by that!

I used the machine's walking foot to eyeball the 1/4" seam. This isn't rocket surgery.

You can see how nicely the "short" strips are caught in the seam, with no danger of raveling out.

Fold the center strip over, iron it down, and proceed as usual with the long strips to finish the block (a picture of which I neglected to take--this being the closest--so I'll go on to the finishing steps).

To trim the blocks down to a neat 9.5", it's important to establish the diagonal line again. It turned out to be easy when a 2" (raw) strip is used. The squares in my ruler nestled in beautifully along the center seam lines.

The only things I needed to fuss over, once those squares were lined up, were the edges: making sure that a little bit would be trimmed from each side, and no side was left short or skimpy.

After the first trim, the block gets rotated 180 degrees for the final two whacks. This is where I get nervous, because the 1/2" markings on the ruler aren't much different than the 1/4" or the 3/4". I'm always scared I'll mis-see the correct line, and trim something down to X-1/4" instead of X-1/2".

So I give myself a simple clue, using a stick-on hole enforcement circle. You can see them in the pictures above (the one placed at 3-1/2" has nothing to do with this project). With my bulls-eye marked, I can be sure the trimmed corner is where I want it, then align everything from there.

Et voila! Ready for the final trimming cuts...

Skimpy white triangle? Skimpy no longer!

...and the design wall:

I wasn't sure, as I was constructing the blocks, whether I'd go with my usual squares. I wanted to break out of that and try something else. Once I saw both settings on the wall, the decision was easy to make. The zigzags are way fun!

A final word about my strings and fabric. I fussy-cut a few of them because they had sections of neutral within areas of medium or dark. It wasn't tremendously fussy; usually I'd just whack a portion out of a string and throw it into the appropriate box. It's always a surprise to me how well the iffy neutrals play with each other. Once I get over how "wrong" they look, it all works out (those bright yellow flowers on the blue background? Crazy making!) This is a square with an example of the same fabric used in both halves.

Hope you got some fun tricks and tips out of this one! Now go forth and sew.