Yesterday I had one of those days….. there were things that I SHOULD be doing (finishing the videoing for my upcoming course), but I desperately wanted to be creative in some way!!

So, I decided to split the day…..create in the morning and video in the afternoon!!

But what was I going to create??

Was I going to continue working on this piece…..

Was I going to start quilting on one of the THREE quilts that are waiting for some time under the needle?

NO….. I was going to start something new!!

It began on Friday as I watched a video about string piecing. Then there was this glimpse of a strip quilt made with mostly brown fabrics but adding pops of red.

I couldn’t get it out of my mind and kept also thinking about all of the brown strips that I had sitting in my drawers….

So….off I toddled into the studio.

I started out by making a strip set….

….cut it into squares and then sliced on the diagonal…..

I added a red strip to the cut side…..

Now it was time to make another, smaller strip set, and cut the triangles out from the side….

I sewed the two triangles together….

And ended up with this fun block….

I made several of them and started playing with layouts….

This is DEFINITELY a design that I will play with more, but for now…..

…into a project box!!

I kept to my plan and spent the afternoon working on a video, but sadly when it started downloading, there was an error and I lost what I had done. VERY BIG SIGH!!

Oh well, I will re-do it today and it will be even better!!

So, that is what I do when I “GOTTA” create…..how about you?

When I left you yesterday, I had sewn the first round in my “jelly role race” quilt.

The next morning, I started on the second round….sewing the sets of two together to form sets of 4….

After a good pressing…..

….it was time to start the next round….

Fortunately, each round gets faster and faster so the quilt comes together quickly.

As I got to the end of each set, I used my scissors to cut the strips in half….

At this stage, I did a little extra pressing, making sure that the seams were mostly flat…..

It was exciting to see this…..

I cut this strip into three parts and sewed them together…..

THAT is a REALLY weird shaped quilt!!!

I debated about how to fix it, thinking about adding vertical strips to the sides, but finally decided to turn more of my scraps into strips, add 8 more rows….

….and CUT IT IN HALF to make 2 smaller quilts!!

I still had some of the long strip left, so I added it in as part of the border.

The first quilt was bordered with a grey fabric, and it looks nice…..

For the second one, I used narrower borders and a dark blue/black fabric….

This one is more striking than the first, but both will make great quilts for our guild charity.

SO….although this quilt looks NOTHING like the original plan, I am thrilled to have finished it and used up so many of my 2-inch strips!!

Now, what am I going to do with all of the 2.5-inch strips…..or the 1.5-inch strips…..or the 2.5-inch squares, or the 3.5-inch squares…..

OH MY!!! TOO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT!!

If you have been reading for a while, you know that I planned a scrap quilt to use my 2-inch strips…..

I planned it and cut all of the strips….and then realized that my calculations were wrong!!

I thought of two fixes….either put the block together as is and trim it down to size, OR increase the white square to 2×2.5 inches.

With this in mind, I set out to work on it at my guild retreat.

The results were NOT GOOD!

I started with the first idea of piecing and trimming to size…..

After trying three times, the width of the block was perfect but the length was between 1/4 and 1/2 inch too short!!

After thinking a lot about it, I decided that the problem was because I didn’t have any markers to ensure that the strips were all sewn straight. There was nothing to “match”.

Bottom line…..I didn’t want to fight it!

So, I moved on to plan B…..or is it Plan C?

I started grabbing sets of two strips, not worrying what colors I put together or what sizes of strips…..

Every so often, I would add a white square to the end of the strip…..

Then I started sewing all of the strip sets together lengthwise….

…until I had 2000-inches of strips…..

….with the idea that I was going to make a “Jelly Roll Race” quilt from my strips!

I finally found the two ends of the long strip…..

and began sewing them together along the long side…..

The first round of sewing took about 1 hour!!

By now, it was after 10pm so I made my way back to my room and pick it up again the next morning.

Join me tomorrow for what happened next!!

A few weeks back, I lamented that I had cut a BUNCH of scraps the wrong size……

Why didn’t you tell me??

As I said in that post, I had decided to just make the blocks as planned, but then cut them down to size.

BUT, Jodie commented that “if I changed the 2″ square to a 2×2.5” rectangle, the block would work.

The finished block would not be a square, but that might look really good.

SO….I played with it in Electric Quilt and came up with this design….

I could keep the design simple, like this…..

OR…. I can get sort of crazy….

…OR, REALLY CRAZY……

THIS could be fun!!

Of course there is one downside….

I wont be able to use all of these 2″ white squares that I have already cut…..

OH WELL….there will always be another project!!

Thanks for all of your suggestions. They truly helped me to stop and think about where to head next.

And, THAT is what quilters do!!!

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