What about those 2.5" blue strips?

Well…

This is what I did. I went through ONE of my bags of 2.5” strips and pulled out all the shorter strips - meaning less than a width of fabric piece and threw them to one side. I then put the longer ones back into the bag. I wanted to do something with only the shorter ones for this project.

Then I decided I didn’t have enough of the shorter ones from only one bag (granted, it wasn’t a large bag) so I went through half of another bag and pulled out the same. I then stopped figuring I had “enough already”.

I spent a couple of hours sewing these pieces together over the course of several days.

Then I took them to the ironing board and pressed the seams all to one side and trimmed off any uneven seam allowances and then wound the pressed strip on to a toilet paper roll. My husband donated a 3d filament plastic spool holder to the project. I think it didn’t work for my husband’s purposes.

After several hours, this is where I was. (I don’t know how many hours - but several/many between choosing the fabrics, sewing the pieces together, ironing, triming off uneven pieces and then rolling them onto the empty TP rolls.)

Then I went to the machine and started sewing the strips from the rolls together. I want to put together a single strip of ‘made fabric’ comprised of five of these 2.5” strips.

I did use a broom to hold the rolls so they can unroll and not twist all up as I work with them.

It is a bit awkward as it is right where I sit and where my knees are, but as I told my husband, “It’s not a permanent thing, but just for now.”

 

I know, I need to get a small pair of scissors to use as clippers at this machine! :) Those huge shears are somewhat cumbersome. I have a small pair of clippers but at my other machine (Juki industrial).

The original video that sparked this is found here.

 
 

Once I get the pieces all sewn together, I’ll see how much fabric I have created that approximates 10.5” wide. At that point, I can either make more and/or decide on patterns to work up. I may need to trim my blocks to 10” so I have a finished size of 9.5”. We’ll see. My strips are pretty wild, at times and some have really ravelled which is requiring me, at times to need to use a bit bigger seam allowance.

I did go to the Electric Quilt program and try to think of things that I’d like to try. So far this is what I’ve drawn up. I think what I end up doing will depend on how much “fabric” I make. The first one is similar to what the original idea was—at least the measurements are similar to the one shown in the video, I believe. Of course my blues won’t look this good as they aren’t all dark. But I had to draw something, so I just chose from the blues on the program. I may take out some of the white based strips (white with blue) as I sew - maybe after the first top I make up. We’ll see.

Obviously I could do something like these below but they only use half as many of the strips as the other blocks. I’d like to use more than half of the quilt top as the blue strips.

 
 

Obviously I was thinking about red/white/blue but I can change the color with a click of the mouse. At this point, choosing the design is priority and then I’ll decide on colors for sure. I’ve had our Quilt of Valor project on my mind. Also apparently many people decorate their houses in the USA in Americana all summer. Since I’ve not lived in the USA since 1994, really, I wouldn’t know, I guess. I just have to take people’s word for it - at least the ones who talk about it on You Tube. I’m going to assume most people don’t actually redecorate their homes for each season - but, shrug, who knows?

But thanks for coming along with me on this journey. I am beginning to suspect that I have enough of these strips for at least two tops, if not three. Maybe I’m completely off, but I’ll keep you posted.

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

Becky Petersen1 Comment