Scraps and Other Projects

It may take a while until I do something new.  I am trying to use up my scraps and this is where I am.

 I sewed the strings onto 7" pieces of phone book paper.  Yesterday, I removed the paper (went quickly and easily) and now I have to decide which block goes where in my 4 across 9 down configuration.  Then I will sew them, finishing the centre of one quilt.

I organized all of the 2 1/2" x 7 1/2" strips and then randomly chose 3 for each block (dark, medium, light).  It appears I have a lot of dark burgundy which are all differently patterned but pretty much read the same.  Most of them came from Quiltmakers on Avenue Road when they were liquidating.  A cautionary tale to buy fabric for projects you plan to make and not fabric just to have because I have had those burgundys for years.  Also a fair number of fabrics I used in baby quilts.  And some I have no idea where they came from.

These are the groups of 3 fabrics, waiting to be sewn together.

And these are some of the sewn blocks.  Right now it looks chalooshesh (literally, sickly, weak) but figuratively, eh or as we say in Yiddish, feh.  But they may look better when finished.  At this point I don't care.  I just want to finish them.  I am thinking rail post pattern.  And if I have enought, perhaps also a coin quilt.

These are the two small bins of leftovers.  None of the strips are long enough for more string quilts, but there are varying length strips which can be sewn into piano keys.  Pieces two short for piano keys will either be cut into 2" or 1 1/2" squares and the rest will become crumbs.

I find the piecing and cutting meditative and enjoyable.

I also mentioned that I have a large bin of needlepoint yarn.  My googling shows that this type of yarn is not suitable for knitting clothing.  I have started crocheting some whitish yarn. 

My plan is to crochet a square and see if it will felt in the washer on high temperature.  If yes, I will try embellishing with needle felting.  If you, I will try weaving with the yarn.

So several projects on the go and the process will be long and perhaps not so interesting.