More Manic Piecing!

Piece Piece Piece Piece Piece Piece Piece! And the bin is just as full as it ever was.

I had to be a bit ummmmm "inventive???" on these borders. I thought there was going to be plenty of the purple,but doing the letters takes more fabric than you think it does with all the trimming,etc. SO! I stuck in some leftover bits from Tonyas quilt....thinking it was going to just END with that purple border. Nope. The voices in my head said..."it needs MORE!"

So last night, I was doing more.

I have people ask all the time why I use a foundation for string piecing. I suppose if you are sewing from STRAIGHT strips (versus the mess you see in my bin below) you can get by with sewing straight strips together and just sub cutting them. My strips can be tapered end cuts from squaring up a piece of fabric, many are torn strips from getting something on-grain. I feel like this adds more character to the quilt when everything isn't arrow-straight and precision cut. Look at the difference between "antique" quilts, and new quilts. See what I mean? So I use a foundation when string piecing. Usually paper because I like to remove it. I don't want that extra thickness of fabric in there.

So the borders for this quilt were pieced the same way I did the little stringies below. I covered phone book pages with the strings, and then sub cut them into whatever width I wanted. I could get 3 sub cuts from each phone book page, so it was speed piecing in a way. Better than whoever had the idea of covering adding machine tape?! Just cover REGULAR SIZED paper, and slice it up. Works for me!

I'm off this morning with Jeff to a job fair. He's GOT to get a job, but it has to be one that will work around his summer school schedule. Evenings and weekends is what he needs. And if HE weren't so picky about what he will take or won't, he probably WOULD have a job by now..(good thing he doesn't read my blog, huh?) Anyway..wish us luck!