I am so pleased with the way this came out! In only about 2 weeks, I've been able to finish this quilt top. It came together quickly. I was able to concentrate on it at Quilt Camp last week, finished the blocks this weekend, laid them out and put it all together. [It is pretty square in real life. It's just hanging on a slumped mattress against the wall in this picture.]
Voila!
Here is one of the finished blocks. It's a little hard to see the solitary block in the full layout because the layout makes the secondary red, black and white squares. I purposely laid out the strings (2-1/2 in strip sets of black and white; 1 honey bun thrown in, too, for some narrower strips) so that there would be a white side and a black side with the intention of creating additional black and white blocks in the final layout. I love it!
This is a block before it's trimmed. The instructions have you start with a foundation square (I used muslin). Then you lay down the color strip corner to corner, then lay down the second strip and sew it down through the foundation, then flip it and sew down the next string. You keep building the blocks that way until it's done. Heartstrings block guidelines / instructions are here.
Here's the back side of the untrimmed block. You can see how sturdy the foundation square is; how it keeps things nice and tidy. It also makes it quite a bit heavier than the usual 1-layered quilt top. I'm wondering if I need to add a batting, or if the muslin will be enough?
Maybe a light batt? It may take another 5 years to finish this quilt. At least I can say I finished the top.
4 comments:
I love this! I made a red, white and black string quilt several years ago but my best friend claimed it. I might have to make another one after seeing this.
This would be so out of my comfort zone but what a beautiful quilt it is. I love quilts with only a couple of colors... with more design than color.
I appreciate seeing the process. It helps to make sense out of a skill that I don't understand.
It's really lovely!
I love this too! I've made several string quilts but not any with this much control in color placement, usually just keep the center strip the same throughout. I've finished mine both ways - with and without batting. The muslin does give some heft if you just want a light throw, or a thin poly batt works well if you'd like a little dimension and added warmth. I think I'd stay away from a cotton batt - even a thin one. I think it would make the whole thing too heavy.
Thanks for your input, Sheila. I was thinking poly batt rather than cotton, too. The muslin will shrink up and give me that antique look that I love, so a poly bat should be ok for this one as it won't shrink in the wash. Yeah--that's my little secret on this one--I know I should have washed and pre-shrunk the muslin foundation, but I couldn't stand the thought of ironing all that yardage. It was so nice and flat as it was off the bolt.
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