Tangled Strings

So I left off sharing the front and back of my scrappy strings quilt, and after a couple weeks of hand-quilting, I have a finish!

For quilting, I used two WonderFil threads - primarily Spagetti 12wt SP101 – Ecru, with SP35 – Coral for the occasional accent.

Even though I hand-quilted in my early quilting days, big-stitch quilting is still not my comfort zone, and I had trouble getting stitches straight or even the same size from one section to the next. 

Still, I persevered, and even though I can't say I really enjoyed it, I got 'er done. And honestly, the texture of the finished quilt is something special.

Here's the back, all quilted up!

Once quilted, I trimmed and bound the little (25" x 26") quilt in black, and am relieved to have finished it. I still love the palette, and am happy to have this fourth quilt made primarily from the scrap basket. That part feels especially good.

Tonal Strings

Ready for another scrappy improv quilt, I turned to Free Form Quilts & Patchwork by Jessie Cutts @cuttsandsons for inspiration. While perusing the projects, I was drawn to the instructions in step one of Project 1, "I start by tipping out my scrap basket...." so that's where I began.

Even though it's not that visible in the photo above, as I pawed through those scraps, I felt like there was quite a bit of brown. And I quickly settled on a palette for my next project. I'm not sure if it quite fits the 'tonal strings' theme of the project in the book, but this is what my scrap basket had to offer me.

Per Jessie's instructions, I began by piecing the smallest pieces together. 

And before long, I had a quilt top, about 25" square. As you can see, I tried hard to use even the tiniest bits - those were cut-offs from piecing the other strip sets. Not my norm to even keep those, but I like what they added to this piece.

I pieced together what was left on the cutting table, included the three smaller improv blocks below.

All that didn't make a large enough quilt back, so I pulled some Kona Punch from stash to bring it up to size.

I'm sharing this part of the project now, because it'll be a while before I have a finish to share. I'm going to hand-quilt this one, and I know that will keep me busy for days (weeks?). I'm already a few sessions into it, and I don't even have the center blocks done. But it's looking good, so I'll be back to share it once I'm done.