Scrappy Strip-Pieced Star Quilt (Part 1)

 I've always wanted to do a strip-pieced quilt to use up my odds and ends of strips.  What got me in gear was cleaning/sorting things in my studio.  I came across my strip bin.  Which contains very well-sorted and labeled strips of fabric.  I had one baggie for 1 1/2" strips, one for 2" strips, one for 2 1/4" strips (because you can make these into scrappy quilt binding), and on and on.  Very. Well. Sorted.

So I took all those strips and divided them into only two categories: lights and darks.  And I started on my squares.  I used some tissue paper that I had on hand.  The roll is 18" wide, so I cut 18" squares.  I drew one diagonal line on the square and took off from there.  Some blocks were all darks, some were all lights, and some were half and half.

An all-dark square.

A half-dark, half-light square.

And here I changed the photo colors to black and white to check out my judgment of lights and darks.  After I saw this photo I switched a few strips to a different bin! 

Here I've put 12 of the 16 squares on a design wall and looked at them in black and white.

With all sixteen squares finished, I started laying them out on the floor.  I had to stand on a chair to take this picture!  Obviously, they are not laid out in the correct order, but you get the idea.

Sewed the squares together, then started the laborious, tv-intensive job of taking out the tissue paper.   (And a significant mess on the floor, I might add!)  Next time I will use un-fused Pellon, I think, so I don't have to tear out all that paper.  I thought about using muslin squares for my background, but I thought it might be too stretchy, as I was sewing on the bias.  Now, after the fact, I don't think that would have been a problem.  So, next time muslin or Pellon.

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At this point, I want to make an observation.  And pose a question to you.  When you make a scrappy project, for example using only red scraps to make squares, do you experience the phenomenon of not having made a dent in your scraps?  I sure do!  When I got all these squares sewn, the strip bins did not seem very much emptier at all.  I recently did some scrappy blue hand-appliqued squares, but I still have a ton of blue pieces in my scrap bins! 

I wonder if there is a scientific principle to explain this. 

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Check back to see my next post about finishing this quilt!