A whole lot of boring stuff about string blocks

I took a bunch of pictures as I went through construction, trimming, and arranging my mindless string blocks. I paid closer attention to what I needed when starting out, and what was useless when finishing up.

Lessons Learned

§ I need 3-5 times as many long strips as I'm prone to think. Once the middle strip is positioned, it needs a strip on either side to anchor it, and there's little difference in length between the three (or five, depending on the width of the strips.)

 

§ Scrambling to find/create more long strips is a great way to use up problematic fabrics. Does it read light? Dark? Does it really matter in the long run? (No.) Where am I ever going to use this hunk of fabric, anyway?

Sometimes it's obvious.

 

§ Shit happens, despite one's best efforts at alignment. True 45º angles are bad at giving a false sense of coverage, and acute angles are worse still.

Heavily frayed ends are no bargain either. Trim them off!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

§ Mark those problematic sections immediately during the ironing stage. I knew I'd be trimming off 1/8" from all 4 sides of the phone book page, so that gave me some wiggle room. If I needed to trim a bit more from one side due to poor coverage, I'd place a small safety pin along that edge close to the finished corner (so I wouldn't accidentally sew over it), on the back so I'd see it in the trimming stage.

Side note: these pages measure 9" x 7.25" so I trimmed the blocks down to 8.75" x 7". Nowhere do "the rules" state your blocks' dimensions must always finish at a whole or half inch!

 When trimming an average block, I'd place the ruler roughly 1/8" in from the edge of paper, trim 2 sides, rotate, align, and make the final two cuts to bring the block to size.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But when trimming a "special" block, I'd position the pinned edge along the left or bottom of the ruler, because I always trim the top and right edges first. I'd skootch the ruler as close to the paper edge as I could for the first (top and right) cuts, giving me a larger amount to cut off in the final 2 cuts.

Pins are removed before trimming, of course.

 

§ Seam lines are a better indicator of ultimate corner size than eyeballing it. 

    I was certain the black/kitty corner would need the bare minimum cut from it because the scrap was smaller, so I trimmed according to that belief.

Oops. That left a teeny opposite corner!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

§ Anything under 3.75" in length creates problems. By the time something that short can be sewn down, it usually means a very small corner remains to be covered. Once a small corner is trimmed down, it runs the risk of disappearing altogether into the seams when the blocks are joined.

That final light§bulb resulted in my next blog, In Which Carolyn Discovers She Really Does Collect Crumbs!