A Bit of Stash Busting!

In 2010 I made this quilt (read about it here) using floral prints from my stash.  The remaining yardage was in a tote ... I added other florals that were in the sewing room ... and last month I brought those fabrics back to the Home Ec room for our open sew day.  The dillydally winds were encouraging me to do a bit of stash busting!

Our guild has an AccuQuilter.  It is wonderful!  I decided to cut all of my floral stash into 2 1/2 inch strips.  There are gazillions of patterns that use strips that size, so I was confident that I would find multiple ways to use them.

I spent the entire day cutting ... it would have taken me weeks to cut all of this by hand!

When Bonnie Hunter was here ... she showed us how to use the AccuQuilter to create "strings".  I hadn't done any string quilting prior to that conversation, but have fallen in love with that technique since.  I am excited to come up with plans for this pile of fun!

Pic by Bonnie Hunter from Quiltville.com

Bonnie's pattern, Scrappy Trips, has gotten a huge amount of press recently.  Many quilt groups have had "quilt-a-long" events using her pattern.  I have come across them all over the internet...very inspiring!  Bonnie's pattern is free ... you can find it here!

Time to begin ... my "leader and ender" squares are in position ... what fun!

I have such a variety of strips ... I gave up on having any color placement strategy ... am just grabbing strips from each color pile and sewing!

I neglected to take pics of sewing the strip set into a tube, cutting it into rings and then ripping out the seams that result in the pieces above.  But ... this isn't a tutorial ... Bonnie's instructions do not need my assistance! ;-)

A finished block!  Quick ... easy ... fun ... and completely scrappy!  Such fun!

An ender ...

... both the leaders and enders add up quickly!  Love accomplishing two things at once!

Flicka inspects the first seven blocks and picked out her favorite!

Even though she isn't in all the pictures ... Flicka is ever present!  And she is happiest when the sewing table is super messy!  There is never a dull moment when we are quilting!

Do what you love.  Do dillydally!

Mrs. DillyDally