My strings quilt is finished!

As a quilter I certainly have my favorites. This one is definitely toward the top of my list. It's a crazy, busy quilt, but with that little bit of white, it somehow just works. It's mostly just scraps, although I definitely bought fat quarters here and there to add in--especially colors I didn't have, like purple. I love looking at it and thinking of other projects as I see various fabrics. This was definitely a labor intensive quilt, but worth the work. I have seen lots of similar quilts on blogs and a stings quilt was on my list of "must-try" quilts. I see it as a pretty big accomplishment.

I used the tutorial from Film in the Fridge to create this one.

My blocks are 8 inches finished. The quilt is 8 blocks x10 blocks with a finished size of about 61" x 77" after shrinkage. It's a little short for a bed quilt. I probably should have added two more rows, but I was pretty much done with the crazy thing after 10.




Now, for the back. Oh, how I love this quilt back. It is my absolute favorite that I have ever designed. It's basically a quilt on it's own (which I have decided I need to start doing to cut down on my overall quilt production and output). It's two quilts in one--much easier to store.

After I finished piecing the front, the idea of the color wheel popped into my head, and I thought it would be a fun way to incorporate more of the same scraps but in a very different way. We have had lots of color discussions in quilt group recently and even have a color wheel class and challenge coming up in a couple months. This is what I envisioned, and I'm so happy it turned out just how I wanted. It also made me realize how many scraps I have as well as where the holes are in my stash. I have very few true blues or true greens, but I do have lots of teals and limey greens. I designed this only with what I had in my stash. I was tempted to go out and buy some fabrics to fill the gaps, but resisted.


I paper-pieced the corners to give it a "rounded" feel since I based my design on a wheel.



As I was working on this one, Ryan asked me what I was going to do with it. I'm still not sure, but it's definitely staying with me. This certainly isn't headed for the gift-quilt pile.