Stephanie Macera

I am addicted to small bits of colorful fabric. I always ask friends and family for their scraps – for the few hours/days each month when I can sew. It was amazing how quickly I came up with enough pretty fabric to start a new string quilt project. I love the way they look!

Before I started my string quilt, I watched lots of video tutorials. Each one taught me something new, but a favorite was from National Sewing Circle tutorial by Beth Bradley teaching both paper piecing and muslin piecing with download information. The blocks below, that I made, did not use either method. I just sewed my strips together and used a 5 inch plastic quilting ruler to do my trimming after. Do what suits your personal comfort zone the best, is always my advice.

The past 2 months, I was trapped for hours during the week and every weekend taking an online computerized accounting class. But when I got my homework done – my reward was sewing up a few of these string quilt blocks.

I ended up with 49, 5″ blocks with really random fabric widths, pattern and color configurations. I sewed a white, minimal print border around each one to calm it down just a bit.

These are two and a half inch white, border strips that I framed each block with. I wanted my quilt topper to be about twin size, not any larger, when finished. I am not really a quilter, I just am obsessed with fabric and want to see it all get used.”Spontaneously” is my favorite word to describe how I sew/quilt. Here is where I go for inspiration before I sew a quilt.

This is what my blocks looked like before I sewed them into rows. Now I have trimming to do. I am sure there are better ways to do this, but I am a lazy sewer and perfection is not my thing. I did go back and make sure that my diagonal strips were all going in one direction. This photo was more about sorting my colors than perfecting the layout.

Now I have rows that need to be sewn together!  August 25-28, I am attending a quilting retreat, hosted by my dear friend, Jackie Clark at the Whatever Craft House. Hopefully I will make amazing progress & have more photos to post. I have already picked out the binding and the backing fabric, but that is something I am horrible at doing – making the quilt sandwich and cutting, sewing binding for it. Retreat will give me prep time and space (and moral support) for those next big steps (borders, backing, sandwich it together… I can then put it away until I can pass it along to a professional for the quilting and binding!)
I would love to know what you are working on (obsessing over)! Whatever it is, I wish you a peaceful, joyful creative time!

Exciting P.S. I saved all the tiny odd scraps from making my larger string quilt and sewed them into tiny squares- another post/more later. Those will be another quilt. My mom is having a fit that I have not made one for her yet… Christmas, maybe?