Oh, crumbs!

 I don't collect "crumbs". I don't! I'm content to toss bits that measure smaller than 1.5" x 1.5" into the trash. Others might save those bits to stuff pet cushions, or sew them together to make "found" fabric, but I've better things to do with my time. And besides, there has to be a line, you know?

Except: guess what? I've been collecting crumbs for years and never realized it.

When I got to the end/bottom of my string blocks and string bin, I realized that the pieces I've been saving/rolling over from project to project, the ones that fell into the at least 3/4" x 2.25" category but under 4" in length, were too small to use in a standard string quilt but too big to throw away guilt-free. They were, in fact, crumbs.

Some of them could be used to build onto the rolling 2.5" scrap border.

I knew the shorter pieces could probably work at the ends of triangle blocks such as spiderwebs, but I had no immediate plans for that kind of string quilt (nor were there enough to really make a go of it). The thought of saving them without an ultimate, imaginable purpose was surprisingly stressful.

So I started playing. I'd recently (within the past year) sewn together the random triangle trimmings, resulting in 127 HTSs (half-triangle squares, because HST [half-square triangles] makes no sense to me):

The last time I had a bunch of these, I made a Jean MaDan patterned quilt from them. I didn't want to repeat that, so I started sewing the string crumbs to one light side of the smallest HTSs, just to see where that might lead. I had a bunch of orange segments, so I started with them.

Then I expanded and kept going until the HTSs got into the 2" range.

Yes? And...?

 

That was it. I was stuck. Now I had little pieces sewn to little HTSs, still without rhyme, reason, or a plan. I even had a little box for the little pieces without rhyme, reason, or a plan, and a growing feeling of anxiety about collecting little pieces (but still too big to toss) for no rhyme, reason, or plan.

Then a day or three ago, as I was doing my complete-ist thing and reading someone's blog from the pilot posting to the present, I came across a link to this pattern:

"Converging Corners" by Film in the Fridge

AH!! I could picture using my HTSs, bordered on two sides with matching (or not) fabrics, as the center squares in these blocks. Surround those with 2.5" hunks of unbleached muslin (of which I have a lot, left over from backing my vintage hand-quilting project), and use additional strings for the log outer borders!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The original pattern, found on this Film in the Fridge site, makes 12" blocks. I'm going for 10" blocks built out from my little bitty HTSs.

That means I'm embracing the fact that I'm a crumb collector now, and have converted The Loud's Sangria pitcher into a convenient catch-all for those pieces.

My proof-of-concept block is pinned to the wall behind the pitcher so I'm reminded of the reasoning and future project behind saving these itty-bitty pieces now.

Hello. My name is Carolyn, and I'm a crumby quilter.