One Monthly Goal for February Completed

When Kat from Cat and Kat Quilts announced her annual String Fling back in December, I had no idea I would become obsessed with making string blocks.  I completed 65 blocks, the pile is shown below, with an additional 35 blocks made into a string quilt top.    The quilt top was my February goal for Elm Street Quilts: One Monthly Goal program. 

I finished the top last night and took a picture.  This morning, I packed two large USPS Priority boxes.  The first box contained:  65 string blocks made by me,

including an additional fifteen I made last week,

thirteen made by Carol Ann, Melinda, and Susan from the quilting group I belong to,

 and fifty three blocks, I did not get to photograph, made by Debbie, also from the quilting group.  Lest you thing the rest of our group is composed of slackers, Debbie had already made the blocks and was looking for a good home for them.

The second box contained:  two tops made from the Film At Five pattern at Wedding Dress Blue, 2 pieces of yardage that are suitable for backing fabric, and my String Style top.

The Film At Five tops were made in 2014 and would never have reached the top of the quilting pile.  Hopefully, Kat can use them to comfort a bereaving family.

I only got to mail one of the boxes today.  I planned to stop at the post office after I finished my shopping.  While I was in COSTCO, I took a picture of some cute outfits to send to my daughter-in-law for her approval.  While checking the pictures, I noticed the photo I took last night of the string quilt.  I used tone on tone fabric for the corner pieces that would form the centers when all of the blocks were assembled.  Two of the blocks had print fabric that I thought I replaced last night.  I remembered cutting the fabric, but I obviously never sewed it into the blocks.

The first picture contains the block that had to be fixed.  It is in the top row, third block on the right.  The corners were replaced on two blocks to correct it.  I don't know if anyone else would have noticed it, but once I saw it, it made me crazy.  I mailed the first box, came home, ripped open the second box, and fixed the error.

The new box will go to the post office in the morning.  I don't think of myself as a perfectionist, but after all of the work the top took, I couldn't let it go like that.  What would you have done?

I'm linking up to the  February Finishes at Elm Street Quilter for One Monthly Goal and Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework.

One Monthly Goal February

I didn't complete the baby quilt I planned to finish for my January project at  One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts.

I was delighted at how crisp the points of the HST turned out in the blocks.  It wasn't until I started to sew the blocks together that I realized how careless I was when ironing and sewing the individual blocks.  The seams where the blocks intersected were so thick, I would have needed a bulldozer to pull the needle through to quilt them.  Most of the blocks will have to be taken apart and resewn.  Even though I planned to use it as a first Valentines' Day gift for the newest addition to the family, I didn't have the interest in redoing it.  I put it in the pile of items that must be worked on and started to make a string quilt instead.

A few of the fabrics are from my own stash, but most of them came from a giveaway from quilt designer Wendy Shepherd who blogs at Ivory Spring.  You might be familiar with her Spring on Bleecker Street quilt along.  The free pattern download is still available.  Wendy was offering a box of fabric to anyone who was willing to pay for the postage.  The box was overflowing.  Unfortunately, I was not blogging at the time so I don't have a picture to share.  She designs patterns for different fabric companies so the variety was amazing.  I have already ripped apart 6 blocks that didn't match well and have a few that still need a row or two removed, but I am going to try to complete the 35 blocks and put the quilt top together as my One Monthly Goal for February  There are already 147 quilters linked up and I am joining them over at Elm Street Quilts  One MonthlyGoal linky party.