Here's one way I've been sewing the strings. I pair them up by similar lengths, and sew the straightest side together, not worrying about squaring anything up yet. These are pretty rough, but I don't want to have to do too much preparation with this technique.
I press the pairs, then trim both edges straight. I don't make then parallel, because a bit of wonkiness adds interest. You can even things out by sewing the next seams; notice the wide end of the green strip evens out the narrow end of the blue strip.
I keep sewing pairs together keeping the length as constant as possible, but not being too fussy This isn't fabric I really care about, and a bit of waste isn't going to upset me.
I end up with a pieced fabric that I can cut in all sorts of ways.
I used my small square ruler to cut some more 3 1/2" squares for my string cross blocks

and paired up some of the leftover triangles to make crumb blocks, so this isn't wasteful at all.
The blocks end up very random, but that's the whole point of strings, I would think. I've got another block to post soon, I keep thinking of ways to use my pieced string fabric.

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The Scrappy Bargello has finally been bound and photographed and will be sent off as soon as we get some other quilts together for the flood relief. I was really pleased with this pattern and would make another very happily.

I've been sewing my strings and I've got a few blocks to show you, but I haven't got time to do a post on them yet. I'll probably end up with two or three quilts in progress from this collection of bits, I'm amazed how far the strings go.

Henrietta remarked that Pippi was getting big, and I agree. We think she may be bigger than Dolly, her legs are longer and she has a bigger frame than Doll had when she was four months old. We'll have to wait and see, but her appetite is certainly all encompassing, including some of Keryn's potplants. (Got into trouble for THAT). And a few of our socks ...and two slats of the venetian blinds.. and a roll of paper towels.. quantities of grass and a green shopping bag, among other things. I think she's chewed more stuff than Macca, Bonnie and Dolly combined. But she hasn't lost her baby teeth yet, so perhaps she's just going through a phase? I hope so. And Henrietta also asked if she would get lighter as she got older, but I don't think so. Macca has got darker the older he gets, and Dolly's coat deepened in colour too.

I've given up trying to draw Pippi when she's awake because as soon as she notices me watching her she gets all silly and tries to climb into my lap.Perhaps when she's more mature I'll be successful. Sleeping dogs are much easier!

And here's Dolly too.

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I've been trying to tidy up my sewing room, which has been a bit jumbled since I moved. Some of the messiest containers were the ones (note plural) that housed my strings and crumbs and bits that I just wanted rid of. There are strips torn off backings and donated strings and weird crooked lengths in here. I kept opening the drawers and staring at the contents, getting stymied as to how to use them, and putting everything away again. I felt like Kramer in that Seinfeld episode where he has the line in a Woody Allen film- "These pretzels are making me thirsty", except I was saying "These strings are making me anxious!"

I've come to the conclusion that I don't like piecing string blocks on a paper foundation, even though the majority of quilters seem to love it. I don't like the process of the sewing, or tearing the paper off afterwards, and my strings seem to make really boring dull blocks anyway.
Look at these two, Boring!! (And don't mention fabric foundations, I like them even less)

Yet I love the finished results that others seem to get, especially the antique examples I've saved. Even the old and faded ones are beautiful.Can't say these are boring..
Wow, lots happening in this one,
and these three have given me an idea...

I cut the blocks into quarters and sashed them-
much more interesting now methinks. I might even learn to like the process eventually.

In other news, Keryn has to dig a trench on her property for some cables to be laid, and we thought the best way to soften the ground would be to keep filling it with water and digging out the earth the next day when it had drained away. She had two avid helpers, especially Dolly who obviously has a keen interest in engineering. Pippi just ran around like an idiot, falling in the trench at intervals and getting filthy. Eventually I put them in the car and took them home to my place.


Note that I put some paper on the seats to protect them a bit- somehow it ended up scraped to the back and the mud ended up all over the place anyway.

But Pippi had such a good time I couldn't be cross, look at that happy face!

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The Scrappy Bargello was really easy to put together, and Bonnies instructions worked like a charm. She adds extra length into the strips to allow for trimming up the strip sets, but I had one piece of fabric that was a tad too small.
I thought I'd squeak it out, but that was the strip where I had to make an extra clean up cut, and I was 1/4" too short at the end. I thought of cutting the whole strip set down, and putting it on the edge of the quilt, because it wouldn't make any difference to the overall look.
But I found another piece of the fabric, and it was the work of minutes to unpick a bit of the seams, insert the patch and sew everything back together again. This is called a 'poverty patch', and a lot of old quilts had them, where the maker eked out the fabrics she had to try to keep to the pattern. I always enjoy finding them when I look at antique quilts, it's a real reminder of how women had to 'make do' in the early days.
I found some pretty rose fabric that had all the colours of the strips in, added the borders and started the machine stitching last night. I couldn't finish the quilting, but it will only take an hour to have this done, and then I can add the binding- the first finish for the year!

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After a very slow start, summer has finally arrived. As my Mum would have said, just in time for the kids to go back to school. Yesterday was 44 degrees (112 F) and it was thoroughly nasty all day, and night as well, because the temperature only dropped to 27 .

I've been a bit alarmed at the quilts mounting up- one lady brought twelve tops last week, saying all her friends wanted their tops to get into the queue too, and she'd kindly offered to bring them all up to us. That, and a few other good customers bringing three and four tops at once means that we're working at capacity again, just when the weather is the worst.

The hall is wonderful, but there are a few things that make it hard to bear in summer; the lack of windows and ventilation, and the 18' ceilings which make it impossible to install affordable air-conditioning. It stays remarkably cool for a while, but when these temperatures build up, it stays very hot out the back where the Statler lives. Which is where I work, sigh.

Yesterday we got up at three, and had the machine running soon after, on this large flannel quilt, complete with flannel backing. It would be lovely and cuddly warm in winter, but I felt like fainting every time I touched it.So hot!!
Pippi stayed in front of this little evaporative unit the whole time, she's not silly. It keeps my feet a little cooler, but the main reason to have it on the floor is to try and cool the computer for the machine. The operators come second!
After a few hours that top was done and I got a second, smaller one loaded and finished by twelve. By then there was no way we could function in the workroom/oven so we came home to collapse in various attitudes of exhaustion. The dogs hate the heat, and they opt to lie flat out on the tiled floors, and I've thought of joining them more than once. Roll on Autumn!

Despite the heat I managed to finish sewing all the panels for the Bargello, but I couldn't face turning the iron on and pressing them. They're waiting for a cool morning to get that done, then there will only be three long seams to sew and it's in one piece. I've enjoyed the technique, and now I want to try a Trip around the World.A trip to the patchwork shop in the next town yielded these fabrics, just because.I don't know what I'll do with them, but it's ages since I bought anything new and these spoke to me. That rose fabric is gorgeous, and I'll be trying it on a few tops that need borders, when it's cool enough to pull them out.

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I've been sewing my strip sets for Bonnies Bargello, and have got one cut and sewed into it's final pattern, just to see if everything fits.
Yes, so it's on with the next one, only two more seams to sew and I'm halfway there.
Well, more than halfway, because all the strips are sewn, and I just have to crosscut these and then pin, and pin and pin those intersections.
But it's mindless, and very satisfying to see the chains of colour march up or down across the strips. Then I can think about a border and backing. This whole top has come from the scrap bin, and while there aren't many pastel pink, green, yellow or blue bits left, I can't really see a dent in the pile. Now I'll have to do a dark top, and one with country colours and so on and so on.

This customer quilt had a dark blue background and I had to use a cream thread in places. I thought the contrast might look horrible, but it's not too bad.
These blocks are straight, it's just that I've got the quilt slung over the arms of a chair. The hall is so hot in this summer weather that I can't bear to stay there longer than necessary, and bring the quilts home so I can end the threads sitting in the air-conditioning. Winter is so much more pleasant when quilting for a living.

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I was cutting a pile of brown fabric for my latest project when I read Jan Mac's blog and suddenly all I wanted to do was dig in the scrap bins and start cutting for some donation quilts.
Keryn and I made a lot of quilts for the bushfire appeal, and it felt so good to be able to do something constructive. The floods in Queensland and Victoria have made me want to sew for others again, and Jan's post was the encouragement I needed.

So I've made a huge mess, and I'm scrabbling and cutting and sorting and working out what I'm going to make.


First up I want to do one of Bonnie's Scrappy Bargello's, because it's so easy to cut for- you only need 2 1/2" strips 16" long. As most of my scraps aren't width of fabric, this will find a use for them. Anything smaller is getting cut for Keryn's Half and Half, or Happy blocks. I figure if I get too many 16" pieces I'll make a Scrappy Trip around the World from Quiltville too, as that uses the same pieces.There's enough in this container for a lap sized quilt, but I haven't finished yet, there's more piles waiting.
Look at the pile of trimmings already. It's so good to get all these bits and pieces out of the way.
Dolly is teaching Pippi how to beg nicely, and who could resist those little white paws?

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I've been going through my sewing room and finding all sorts of things that I only have vague recollections of. I can remember making these units for a pink and brown block, and thought I'd finished one or two. But I found 13 blocks in the drawer so I must have pottered away on this project a lot longer than I thought I did.

For now I can just make another pile of sq in sq units, but I'm going to have to get serious and decide how big I want the top to be, and how I'm going to set them.Another drawer contained these two finished blocks and pieces cut for a lot more.
I can remember making one to test the pattern, but I'd done three, and a heap of Puss in the Corner blocks to use as the centre.
Nope, not much was written to the memory banks on this project either. I also made this more complicated version, so I must have been fiddling with the idea for quite a while. Oh well, the pieces are all ready and waiting and I can start sewing with little preparation.
Pippi went for her first long walk at Bowman's Park the other day, and she ran and ran like a mad thing, racing around with the other dogs. When we got home she just collapsed on the gravel driveway- she was pooped!!
Once she builds up a bit of stamina I think she'll be hard to keep up with.

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We had great plans for achieving things this long weekend, but the heat (44 degreesC or 111 F) has meant that we've been settled in front of the air-conditioner just trying to stay cool. Today wasn't quite as bad, but the heat always upsets my plans and drains my energy. I'm a winter person I'm afraid, but we've got three more months of this so I'd better get over it.

Of course plans to handsew are impractical because of the general stickiness and short temper, but I did finish the last of these blocks.

I thought I only had ten more to do, and then I found a little container with eight more hiding in it. Gagh! But finally they're done, now if only I could remember how I wanted to set them.

Originally they were going to look like this, with just two rounds in each block.
I've lost the photo of the antique quilt that made me decide to add another round, but it was something like this, without the hexagon centre.
I know it had two setting colours like this, but beyond that I'm at a loss.
I should have finished the darn thing while it was still fresh in my memory. I've lost so many wonderful pictures of antique quilts in various computer crashes, and I still get cranky thinking about them. Now external strorage devices are so cheap it's not a problem, thank goodness.

Keryn and I spent an hour yesterday making a list of goals and directions for 2011, and we'd be all fired up and ready to go, except for that whole energy-sucking heat thing. But at least we know what we're aiming for.

Pippi has displayed quite an astonishing aptitude for excavating, and all but disappeared in this hole she dug yesterday. She was standing on her hindlegs here, and you can see the dirt flung around in all directions. I think we'd better distract her from her hobby; the first time she digs up a garden bed I won't be quite so amused...
Can you see a theme with the drawings ie pippi's always asleep. I tried drawing her sitting up today, and she got so excited as I continually glanced at her that she ended up prancing around barking at me.
She refused to stay still after that, no wonder I like it when she's fast asleep...

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