Another Quilt

Well I am on a roll - I just finished my third quilt this year!  This was made with scraps again, and again there seems to be no dent made in my stash.  I am not sure how that happens.

Quilt Front

Quilt Back

 I started this one with backing, batting then half of a layer cake piece (10" square).  I then cut scraps into 2-1/2" pieces and used the string quilt method.  That is done by sewing one strip face down then flipping it, sewing another strip on top of it face down and flipping that one.  You keep going until the desired size.

When you have your desired size (a 10" square) use a 10" ruler and rotary cutter to trim the square.  All squares were made the same way.  I made 20 for this quilt - 4 wide x 5 tall.

My next step was to quilt the solid portion of each block.  A couple of years ago I learned how to draw Zentangles and that relates well to quilting.  I used a Frixion pen to free-hand draw a different design on each half square.  I then sticthed each one using free motion techniques.  If you are not familiar with that it is when you drop your feed dogs and you move the fabric around instead of it being fed by the machine.  After the designs were stitched came my favorite part - heat the drawn design with a hot iron and the pen marks completely disappear leaving all your beautiful stitching.  There is something rewarding in watching that process.  Here are my hand-drawn designs:

Once everything is stitched you have to decide how to put your pieces together.  I don't have a design wall so I just laid them all out on a bed until I liked the look.  This is when I decided I needed to make more!  Be sure to number and mark your rows and pieces however is best for you to keep them in the same order when sewing them together.

There are a number of ways on line to put a quilt together using the "Quilt as You Go" method.  I have tried a few of them but had better luck making up my own method.  I am sure any really good quilter would cringe at the way I do this but it works for me!

Working one row across at a time I butted one square against the second and did a zig zag stitch to hold them together.  I repeated until I had 5 across.  I did all six rows the same way.  Using the sashing fabric I cut 2" strips.  I folded each side into the center and ironed well.  On the backside of the quilted row I pinned one strip face up over the zigzagged seam.  Then I stitched each side down with a top stitch.  When the back side is done, flip it over and repeat on the top side.  Once each row is done, stitch one row to row two, and cover the seams with the skinny strips.  Repeat until the quilt is completed.  Keep in mind that on the back side the strips will have two rows of top stitching on each side.  That doesn't bother me but if it bothers you, you might want to use a different method.

Here is what the stitching looks like on my blocks.  I really had a lot of fun making this one.  It will most likely be a donation quilt but I will probably just look at it for a while before I give it away.