String blocks

A couple of people asked about the quilt blocks I helped Shelly work on. They are called scrappy string blocks, and a bit of search turned up a nice tutorial: Scrappy String blocks. I found a decent picture, too.

When I made them for Janice, they were on a paper foundation. The paper was telephone book pages. These are less common these days, but yellow page books are fairly available. Shelly used parchment baking paper from an enormous box of same she had acquired. Whatever works for you.

The foundation paper must be a square, for these blocks. I built a supply of these by tearing out one phone book page, folding it diagonally, and then folding the excess at the bottom to produce a square. I used a ruler on the short bottom fold to tear off the excess paper. 

Open out the square. From any box of your many precut strips, put one strip centered on the fold. Secure with a pin, top and bottom, so it doesn't slip.

Set the sewing stitch very small. This makes the paper tear away more easily. Put the next strip along the first and sew with a quarter inch seam. Press with your thumbnail, and sew down the next strip. Press down and continue to the end of the square.

Reverse the block to sew a strip to the other side of the first strip. Thumbnail press, and continue. The blocks need pressed, trimmed, and the paper torn off. Then set together as you please.