Cut'em Up!

 Remember the block race I was in a little while ago?

Well it produced a big stack of 10" blocks.

 

The pile was added to one late night 

when I just needed something to stitch, so it got larger.

Some of the blocks were trimmed down to 9 1/2" for a

devilish bingo game at retreat, but the pile was still substantial.

I've been collecting string quilt instructions 

for this year's string quilt push

and I came across a top made with 

perpendicular block halves.

The pattern is from Fons and Porter 2014.

Some were larger than required but

 I didn't want to cut them down

and waste all that good sewing and fabric.

So of course I modified the pattern.

Channeling the spirit of upcycling, sustainability and reusing,

I used a lime green poly cotton as the sashing.

Yes, it brought back all the reasons not to use poly cotton.

It isn't as forgiving when joining diagonals,

it has a peculiar smell when ironed, and it is rather slippery

and required use of  *gasp* pins. 

Actually, I do use pins quite a bit so that's nothing unusual.

Here we go!

First, I sorted my blocks, to keep green strips away from the center

so they wouldn't interfere with the sashing.

Then I bravely slashed half of them 

in the direction of the strips,

and the other half perpendicular to the run of the strips.

Next, I added the lime green 1 1/2" strip to the middle,

squared them all up again to 9 1/2",

pieced them all back together, and voila!

My top is already at the ideal size for a twin, 

It will end up with a small border of

squares set in a plane or reads a solid background.

Here is a mock-up of  mine next to the original pattern.

A piano key border would make the top larger than I like

so I will use my smaller border.

There's always the capacity for modification!

There is still a pile of blocks to use, 

so another something is definitely in the works.

Stay Safe and Sew on!

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Monday Musings

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Handmade Monday

Sr SPS