Bee blocks

My Monday Modern group has decided to do a bee, and Helen was the first person to get herself organised and the fabric distributed. She's doing a quilt that's a combination of string-pieced blocks and hexagons. She asked the group to do the string pieced blocks and provided us with a central strip of spotted linen and five other fabrics for the rest of the strings. Seeing as we meet this coming Monday I figured I should get it done so I can spend some time getting my block fabrics sorted to take along!

I've never done a string block, but as this one uses a paper foundation it promised to be fairly easy. And actually it was, but only by the skin of my teeth because I literally had a small handful of tiny scraps left over at the end! I think that's a combination of Helen's good estimating and my profligacy with the way I put the first block together. At first I was centering the fabric strips without much thought for how much was hanging over the edges to be trimmed. I realised fairly quickly that I should be placing the end of the strip just a bit further than it needed to be, and saving the excess at the other end for the shorter runs. I knew I had some of the pink she is using so I could have cut a strip of that, but in the end it was just enough. I was quite proud of myself!

 The one thing I did stuff up a bit was in drawing the 8 1/2" square of lunch paper I used for the blocks, one side was about 2mm under (whatever that is in inches), consequently a couple of strips are a smidge on the short side and the centre strip isn't exactly centre, but I'm pretty sure that will be absorbed in the seam allowance and all will be fine.

I love how cheerful and bright the blocks are without being too busy - and boy are they fast to sew up! If only I had more scraps...