Misfit Toys quilt top

Hi all! How have you been? Well, I have met some of my deadlines, waved at others as they went past, finished the things that I absolutely had to do, and I finished the Christmas cards!  Oh, and I apparently decided to keep Amazon in business single-handedly, but that means fun packages keep showing up at my house.  It's like my own private present opening every day.

In the midst of all that, I also managed to find some time to squeeze in some stitching for one more finish this year. Here is my final finish for 2017:

When I started this quilt I was really unsure about it, but now I really like it! This is the quilt made up entirely of orphan blocks and failed experiments.  I connected all the blocks with strings from the string jar.  Again, I was unsure, but it worked out great!  I call this one Misfit Toys because I'm feeling like all of these blocks found a way to fit in together.

Those of you who have seen this top before will notice two things-- first, I rearranged the blocks a bit more and added a few more things from the parts and pieces bin to fill in some of the bigger spaces.  That bin should be the next one I clean out because it's stuffed full too.

The second thing you might notice is that I ripped out a bunch of strings and basically started over.  I had started using the colorful strings as sashing in between the blocks, but then I ripped those out and used all the light strings to connect the blocks.  Yes, it was tedious, but look at the result!  From a distance it looks like they are all white or beige, but there are plenty of pale colors in there as well, including a few prints.

A very messy process!

I thought I might have to cut some more light strings to have enough, but I didn't, which is pretty scary, actually.  I did use up a whole lot of them, which is super because I never seem to have a use for the light-colored ones.

The border is made up of the colorful strings from the jar.  I pieced these in three rounds, going all the way around the quilt three times, twice from the medium pile and once from the pile of wide strings. The outer border measures about 3-1/2 inches, and the quilt as a whole measures about 65 by 70. 

This was a fun quilt to make.  There was no stress here beyond choosing which strings I wanted to pull out of the pile. I measured almost nothing.  Mostly I just joined up some strings and then trimmed them all to the width of the narrowest string, then stitched them on.  The only real measuring was to make sure that the rows were all the same width so they would all fit together properly.  If I were to do this again I would trim the strings to standard widths, which would make putting them together much easier.

When I started, I sorted out the strings into three general piles of wide, medium, and narrow strings, then put the narrow strings aside.  What did I do with these? Take a look:

I made about 20 of these 4-1/2 inch string blocks.  Yes, it's a sickness.  Some of the strings here started out as narrow as 3/4 inch. But I'm no longer saving any strings smaller than an inch to an inch and a quarter.  Really, I swear!

After I finished this quilt top and all the string blocks, I did something radical with all the rest of the strings-- I threw them out.  What?  Yep.  If I didn't use them in this project, I'll probably never use them, so they're gone.  I'll be starting 2018 with a nice empty jar.  I wonder how long it will take to fill?

With that, I am closing up the sewing room for the rest of 2017.  We have a lot of travel and relaxation (and a professional conference) to get to, and I have to spend a bunch of time hugging some babies.  I have a couple of posts already scheduled, so there will be some new things, but otherwise 2017's sewing is finished for me.

Whatever holidays you celebrate at the end of the year, I hope you have a wonderful, relaxing, happy time, and that all your holiday wishes come true.  Peace and joy to you and yours!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, crazymomquilts, and Oh Scrap!