I Bought A Bag Of Strips

Her invitation was innocent enough. "Come to my house Friday morning. I'm having a fabric sale." Donna is a local quilting teacher who specializes in creating breathtaking Bargello, Log Cabin variations, and unique quilt renditions using fabulous fabric combinations that make your heart beat fast just looking at them. She's also a member of our local chapter of Fabriholics. She needed to clear space on her shelves to make room for her new additions. I anticipated finding a few gems....you know, someone's junk is another person's treasure.

I was not disappointed that Friday. There were large, lovely pieces of fabric that I snatched for quilt backs and smaller cuts I collected to fill in my own color palette. Then I spied a basket filled with scraps. I happily rummaged through that with such obvious enthusiasm because Donna noticed and said, "I have some plastic baggies with leftover strips from some of my bargello quilts if you¹re interested in small pieces...." When she came back into the room with several bags of color-coordinated strips, I grabbed all she had.

After paying for the large shopping bag filled with my booty, I hurried home and dumped it all out on my sewing room floor. Ideas started to flow. You see, the most difficult part of the quilting process for me is color selection and co-ordination. This is a natural thing for Donna. And having remnants from her famous, award winning quilts gave me such inspiration that I was overjoyed at having the difficult part of quilting behind me. Because the strips were cut in varying widths of 1" to 3", my pattern choices were narrowed, too. Now I was excited. I thrilled to the challenge: make a quilt or two or more using these gorgeous prints. I picked a color family (there were several) and began.

The rusts, blacks and shades of brown in one set of strips brought to mind the packet of cotton squares from South America my sister gave to me 15 years ago. They were still in the drawer, patiently awaiting the perfect quilt destiny they were confident was their ultimate fate. They are small, cream-colored 2-3/4" squares, with a stencil-type motifs of birds and plants. They were to become the focal point in three miniature quilts.

My first plan was simple. The strips "told" me that they would be happy creating a Rail Fence quilt. I pulled out 2 strips each of brown, rust, black and blue print. Their widths were between 1" to 1-1/2". I seamed them all together, trimming the final width to 2-3/4". Next, I cut wedges from the long strips, 2-3/4" x 2-3/4". Working with a 5 x 5 block setting, I chose 12 of the stenciled squares and arranged them with 13 of the Rail Fence blocks, alternating the stripes of the 2-3/4" wedges (some horizontal and some vertical). The resulting 5 x 5 setting measured approximately 12". I chose a nutmeg colored print strip 1" wide and sewed that to my mini quilt as the inner border (finished width = 1/2"). And lastly, I chose a black/brown multi-print for the outside border. Since the strip was 1-1/2" wide, it finished to a 1" border! The strips dictated size all the way through. I hand quilted this one.

I still had some South American squares left. And I had some strips left over from that first quilt. I remembered I had a beautiful Nancy Crow 1/2 yard piece of rust that would make a perfect border for a special quilt. Keeping in mind that these little squares were to be the focal point, I decided to design around them using a simple Log Cabin. Some strips were 1-1/4" wide and others were 1-1/2" wide. I didn't worry -- I could trim all the finished blocks to a neat 6" when I was done. When I sew Log Cabin quilts I don't waste time cutting my strips. I assembly-line sew my blocks by laying them against a long strip, butting edges, and then cutting them apart. I only had enough fabric strips to do 16 blocks, though I had set out to make 20. Again, the size and amount of strips dictated the end result of my quilt. I added a 1/2" (finished) black inner border and a 2-1/2" (finished) outer border. That's because that's all I could squeeze from the Nancy Crow fabric!

Now, I still had 8 South American squares left. I looked high and low for a 9th, but the bag was empty. So, I would make another quilt with a setting of 2 x 3 using 6 squares. Attic Windows would be perfect and would still keep my squares as the focal point. Using the scraps (and I mean scraps!) from the first two quilts I cut 1-1/2" wide window sill sashings, mitering the bottom left corners. I added a thin 1/2" (finished) black strip separating the windows. I had one strip of a nutmeg miniprint and used it for the 1/2" inner border. My outer border uses two different prints because I didn't have enough of the checked one to go all the way around! They say necessity is the mother of creativity. Well, this mother went into labor and gave birth to three creative quilts!

I'm all out of South American squares. Or, I should say, all the South American squares are IN their new quilt homes. I squeezed 3 mini quilts out of Donna's leftover strips. And in the process I learned that someone's castoffs can be the key to another person's creativity. Wanna buy some of my leftovers?

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