Words and Strings

As mentioned in the last entry, I've reached the point in the crumb quilt where I needed to jump in and start piecing letters and words.  The first few words'-worth 😜 of letters went pretty well, I think.  Then I thumped over a speed bump and slowed right down.  

It might have been that those first letters just happened to be "easy" ones, and then I came to one that wasn't so easy.  Or maybe I just ran out of steam or got distracted... I'm not sure why, but I lost my mojo for piecing those letters.  I have quite a few left to do, and I'll get back to them soon, but I'm not going to push it, since there's no deadline.  (I've been feeling rather stressed in general, lately, so that probably has something to do with it!)

If anyone's interested, I'm using the freestyle letter-piecing method outlined in Word Play Quilts, by Tonya Ricucci.  It looks like it's out of print.  There are second-hand copies floating around out there, but I decided to get a digital, e-book copy, which I bought at Martingale. 

There are a couple of pages in the book that contain a handy reference guide to how each letter is constructed, and rather than sit with my laptop open to the side the whole time, I printed out those two pages.  Much more convenient!

Here's a sneak peek at some of the letters I've pieced.  They're waiting to be joined into words, and I trust they'll look better, once they are.  

I'm still very much in the learning phase, but you don't have to be an expert quilter or a precision piecer to use this method.  That's a big part of why it appeals to me.  My favorite kind of quilt-making is intuitive and free-flowing, not nit-picky and regimented.  I want to have fun, and having to be exactingly precise isn't really my idea of fun!  I might admire it in others, but I'll end up wanting to pull my hair out if my goals for my own hobbies are too strict.  Close enough is good enough, in my book.

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As much as I've felt I "shouldn't", I really just wanted a new project-- an excuse to string-piece on the treadle.  I gave in to the urge, cut some phone book squares, pulled out a couple bags of strings, and in no time was seated at the Minnesota again!  

I don't really have a concrete plan for these string blocks.  I'll just make a bunch of them and then see what looks right.  At the moment, the only goal is to have fun making 6-inch string squares in pinks and aqua/teal.  

So far, I've only been making the pink ones.  

I'm having fun, and that's reason enough to do it!