Okay, so maybe that post title was a little more racy than I meant it to be, but honestly, I can't stop stripping. It started with my Kona stash, but now I'm branching out into other fabric. After spending much of the last couple weeks under a quilt feeling like crap, I was renewed in my 2014 resolution to make more quilts to donate to
IWK Choices. My quilt made me feel better and I want to pass that on to others. I also had a serious issue with my cool tone scrap bin - as in the lid would no longer come anywhere close to fitting. I should really have taken a before shot of that! So off I went, cutting 2½ inch strips.
By my calculations, I needed approximately 3200 inches of strip to make a 65 by 97 standard twin size. After the great scrap bust, I was still short by almost 2000 inches. And I thought there was a lot in there! On the up side, here's the current state of the bin. Lid on and plenty of room for future scraps!
So I turned to my significant pile of blue and green fabrics in my yardage stash. As an aside, do you think the term meterage will ever come into common usage in Canada? It's not like you can even buy a yard of fabric around these parts. But I digress. Since I wasn't worried about everything being all matchy-matchy (this is a scrap quilt afterall), it freed me to cut into some fabric that's been kicking around the stash for a while. Roughly 48 WOF strips later, I had enough to get sewing!
Word of warning - Twin sized or larger strip quilts are not easy to sew in a small space.
Nor do they take only an hour, no matter what you read on the internet. I burned through quite a number of episodes of Downton Abbey on this project! One handy tip for you - when pressing seams, attach a binder clip to the end of your uber long strip. That way, when you have a tangled mess of strip on the floor and need to get sewing again, you can find the end easily!
And after much matching of ends and sewing together, ta dah! Watery spring sunshine had to do for this photoshoot.... come on, summer!
My calculations weren't perfect - it finishes up at 65 by 90, but it seems to be plenty big! Next up, a piecing backing to further cut into that over-sized stash. I love using stuff up!
Now back to my regularly scheduled sewing! Blog you later!
J
Love your quilt. I need to start using up my stash, so the tip about the binder clip will come in handy.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great way to use up stash. Thanks for the tip about the binder clip!
ReplyDeleteI am going to try that tip the next time I make binding and need to iron it in half! Love all the blues and greens with bursts of yellow!
ReplyDeleteMeterage? Sounds bad! lol I luv stripping. oops! But old time strippy quilts just attracted me and these are simply a more modern version. Nice!
ReplyDeleteVery nifty! And I love the binder tip idea!
ReplyDeleteA scrappy delight! Love it.
ReplyDeleteI did a lap size with earthy batiks and thought that was a bear to handle - beautiful!
ReplyDeleteI did one of these with 4 1/2" strips and it was much easier to sew. I have the strips cut for another one. I should finish that.
ReplyDeleteWhat fun! It's bright and happy and makes me think of spring!
ReplyDeletethis looks great Jenn! I need to try this stripping....
ReplyDeleteHaha...love it when you talk dirty!! This is a great quilt and a totally brilliant solution for the scrap bin. My scrap drawers hardly close and I keep thinking I need to make a scrap quilt. This one looks simple enough, even if you didn't finish in an hour!!
ReplyDeleteGreat job!!
ReplyDeleteLooks great! You'll have to give us some stripping tips!
ReplyDeleteSpring cleaning in the studio, I love it!
ReplyDeleteSuper fabulous idea for using scraps!! Love the binder clip idea too. Do you also notice as a Canadian quilt we do cuts in inches? 2 1/2" strips rather than cm?
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful quilt. It's so much fun to see what can come out of those scraps that can be easy to ignore.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great way to use up a stash (so we can buy more). I love the binder clips idea and you're right it never takes a short amount of time to do all that sewing. The quilt turned out beautifully.
ReplyDeleteOh i love this!! I will someday, make something other than bee blocks from my scraps! And this is a definite contender! And that tip with the binder clip is genius!
ReplyDeletesuch an interesting process, with surprising results! Thanks for the binding clip tip. I better get to work finding more uses for the wonderclips otherwise I will lose my spokesperson position!
ReplyDelete