Bottom Bin

Thrift is at the heart of patchwork.  In baskets, bins, drawers and jars all over the world, we tuck away the trimmings from other projects until we have enough for something new.  Something Made From Scrap. 

But do you ever reach the bottom of the bin?  Nope.  More sewing yields more scraps, which inspire more sewing and on and on it goes.  My long, thin strip scraps especially propagate rapidly.  Over the years of picking through and using my favorites, my strip scraps are overflowing, but not over-inspiring.  I've decided now is the time to use them or lose them.  I'm ready to see the bottom of those bins!

Here they are, all of them.  I have a bin of reds/pinks and a bin of yellows/oranges.  The other two piles outgrew their bins:  blue/green and neutral/purple. 

Do you think this is too many scraps for one throw quilt?  I wonder....

The time is right to make my very first string quilt.  Looks like I have more solid, dark blue strings than anything else.  I'll press and cut these into 1" wide strips, to be placed at the center of each string block.

I've never made a string quilt, I guess because it never sounded fun.  Sewing strip scraps is fairly time consuming, since they cover little area, and repetitive.  To make the process more interesting, I thought I'd create amusing two-color stories on each half of the block.  Here, on my first block, I chose purple/gray for one half and bright green and ? for the other.

But... that turned out to be a false start.  Too intentional.  Too frustrating.  I unpicked and considered the options.   In the end I resorted to full scrappy and made four test blocks in one throw-together batch, still worried that I wouldn't be happy with the results.

As soon as I put the finished blocks together, I was hooked!  I love it!  It feels moody and bohemian with hints of approaching autumn.  I didn't mean to make dark or dusty blocks, but I recently used up my lighter and brighter strip scraps for the Lake Cabin quilts, so what remains is on the darker side.  Serendipity!

Full speed ahead!