Welcome to week 3 of FPPFTT

I’ve been enjoying seeing your creations appearing in the Flickr group for the previous 2 weeks.  Now I’m hoping that today’s blocks won’t engender the same angst that weeks 1 and 2 have caused some of you by way of fabric choice, because this week we’re tackling string blocks, and you have an excuse to use up all your scraps and selvedges!

Now for this week there’s no template, because you’re going to create your own.  It’s okay, you can do this quite easily, because it’s just a plain old square of paper… yup, that’s it!  I thought I’d leave you to choose your own size, depending on what you might want to do with them afterwards, but these make great cushion covers, mini quilts, potholders and more, depending on how you put them together.

For mine, I chose a 6″ square template.  I had a range of strips of fabric left over from my Stained QAL quilt, with varying widths, however don’t feel you have to go scrappy if you don’t want to, this works just as well with strips of the same width.  Whichever way you go though, your strips really need to be at least 1″ wide to show up (my white strips above are 1″ wide, for reference).

So, having cut your template and fabric, take a long strip that completely covers the diagonal, and place it face up on top of the template:

Now take a second strip that will also cover the diagonal, and place it right sides together with your first strip, aligning the right hand edges, and pin in place:

Take this over to your sewing machine, and set it up as you would for regular piecing with a scant 1/4″ seam, however, don’t forget to change your needle for your paper use one!

Stitch in place with a scant 1/4″ seam, then press your 2nd piece of fabric open:

Now grab your next strip of fabric, and place it right sides together with your 2nd strip (the purple/pink one in the photo above) and pin in place:

Stitch as for the previous strip, and press open:

Keep adding strips until you have covered one side of the template:

Now flip it round and begin the same process again on the other side, starting with the centre strip:

And keep repeating until you reach the other edge:

You will notice that I’ve also added another purple piece onto the right hand side, as I decided I wanted to have colours at my corners rather than white.

Turn your template over, and trim down to the edge of the paper:

You don’t need to worry about adding a seam allowance with these blocks, as you don’t lose any of the balance by piecing these blocks into anything else, unlike the courthouse steps and the square in square designs.

I then threw together another 3 blocks, and had a play with arranging them:

And then I peeled the paper off the back:

I hope you have fun with these blocks, they’re such great scrap busters :o)  Don’t forget to link up your creations to the Flickr group when you’re done!