Monday, March 12, 2012

strings

I love Bonnie Hunter.  I love her approach to organizing your scraps (even though I don't organize), I love her mysteries - I have downloaded several.  Then I get hung up on doing the string blocks.....  I consider sewing string blocks mindless sewing (just my opinion, I am not calling anyone mindless here).  Now mind you, I don't mind being mindless, I just can't do very much for very long.  And, I do love the look of string blocks and I have a stack (if you can call 10 or 12 a stack) of 6 X 9 that is in my scrap bin and ever so often I pull out my bin and make a few string blocks - maybe someday I'll actually have enough to make something more than a placemat :-)
Okay, so what's this all about???  Is there an organized way to make string blocks?  Am I missing something?  I'd love to read some tips, tricks, advice, whatever anyone has to say about how they get a quantity of string blocks accomplished.  I take all my trimming strips and throw (remember I'm not an organizer) them into THE bin, and of course because of this, whenever I decide to do some strip blocks, it's take the iron (which sits right next to machine) and press, then sew, trim, etc...  OKAY, and if I was giving advice to me the first thing I'd say is "well, press those strips and put them neatly in a smaller bin"  and my answer to self would be "I did do that - for about 5 minutes!"  See not only am I not a very good organizer, I also have no patience TO organize.....
SO.... any help truly would be very much appreciated,

Katie 

2 comments:

A Left-Handed Quilter said...

Katie - You know that I press and sort my strips by length - and then stack them in piles on a cookie sheet. When I make a string block - I start with the stack that is about 1" longer than the diagonal of the block - and work my way down to the smaller strips - chain piece - etc. I have posted ALL about my process - BUT that won't help if you don't WANT to do it that way. ;))

So - how about you pretend that you are Scrooge and your strips are your $$$. Then pretend that you are going to spend a day or two counting your $$$ and sorting them into piles of pennies - nickels - dimes - and quarters.

I actually LIKE playing with my fabric - pressing - sorting and stuff. I don't have to be actually SEWING to have FUN doing what I LOVE to do. ;))

Sue said...

I've started sewing them as a warm up before I start sewing properly. I sew them for five minutes at the beginning of each sewing project. I also pop them in when I am chain piecing. I piece three or four, then pop in a string block. Sometimes I chuck in a couple and do them start to finish, other times I just put one through. All depends on what I feel like at the time.