Blue & Green String Couch Quilt

I machine pieced this quilt on my Bernina 240.

I quilted this quilt on my Janome QMP-18 long arm.


Finished size: 57" x 70"

(click on photos to enlarge)

🍃FINISHED QUILT:🍃

Front piecing: A 7x9 grid of 63 total foundation string blocks, made from various width fabric strips of greens and blues on each side of a centered 2" wide black strip of fabric. 

Borders: The grid is surrounded by a 1.5" black inner border, and then a 6" wide outer pieced border inspired by Moda Fabric's Sunset Ridge Quilt pattern.

Backing: The back of this quilt is 4.25 yards of a lovely celery-green fabric with intricate white floral vines.

Quilt Stitching, Pattern: The quilt is stitched with 29 rows of “Square Waves” by 627Handworks. I offset each row horizontally by 50%, creating a lovely diamond effect.

Quilt Stitching, Thread (Front): I used a soft light blue thread called "It's a Boy" (So Fine 50 #435) for the front of the quilt, to complement but not overpower the green and blue pieced fabrics.

Quilt Stitching, Thread (Back): I used a dark blue thread called "Out of the Blue" (So Fine 50 #433) for the back of the quilt, so the quilting design stands out on the celery-green printed fabric.

Label: Attached one of my customized printed fabric labels from EverEmblem to the back of the quilt. I placed it strategically enough so that the stitching through to the front somewhat blended in with the overall piecing pattern.

🍃INSPIRATION:🍃

I find myself crossing paths with people on social media that I feel moved by - in this case, I decided to create a quilt for someone facing cancer and all of the trials that come with it. The entire time I spent creating this quilt, I asked the universe to send her strength, peace and positive healing.

🍃PROGRESS PHOTOS:🍃

Construction-Blocks:

I started by going through my stash of strips, fat quarters and small yardage pieces. I pulled shades and tones of green and blue. I focused on color values and worked with pairing contrasts (lights vs darks) next to one another as I made the string blocks. 

I used my 6.5" Creative Grids ruler as my template, cutting all my initial foundation fabrics (also scraps from my stash) that size, and again trimming the finished block back down to 6.5" square.

63 squares later, the center of the quilt was complete and hanging on my 'design wall' (a vinyl tablecloth with the flannel side facing out).

Construction-Borders:

Prior to adding borders, I double-checked the backside of the quilt, making sure all of the numerous piecing seams were pressed open and flat and the quilt was square. Here you can see all of the different light-colored scrap fabrics I used for the string foundations.

To give the eyes a 'spot to rest', I decided to attach a narrow black inner border, before adding the wide pieced border.

I knew I wanted a pieced border for the string blocks, but I didn't want something that took away from the main pattern. After adding the 1.5" inner black border, I decided to make the outer border from the pattern used in this Sunset Ridge quilt. But since it was going to be in a border format, I reduced the size of the strips and blocks by 20% (down to 2" wide). I did lots of chain piecing and ended up making over 150 strips! Also got to use up even more of my blue and green scraps.

Pinning on the outer pieced border.

The progression of adding the wide border, as well as the mitered-look corners.

One last step before I loaded the quilt onto my longarm: I basted all the way around the outer border, being careful to not put any tension or extra pull as I ran the edges through my sewing machine. I didn't want any stretching or misshaping to happen to the pieced border as it was quilted.

Quilting:

The backing and batting are loaded, and the top is floated to be sure everything is squared and ready. Then I basted down the top and created a quilt sandwich. This is the 82nd quilt stitched on my Janome QMP-18 long arm since I purchased it 4 years ago.

I laid out the edge-to-edge "Square Waves" by 627Handworks in my ProStitcher software, skewing every other row by 50% horizontally. 

The stitching pattern looks like diamond shapes with soft edges, no sharp points - that way nothing competes with the straight-lined string piecing of the blocks.

Beginning the first of 29 rows.

Finishing up the last few rows.

Trimming:

Squaring up the quilt after removing it from the long arm, readying it to add the binding.

Binding:

The binding is almost 300" of 2.5" wide black-on-black fabric (the same fabric used for the center strip of each string block).

First attaching the binding strips to the back of the quilt...

...then wrapping the binding around and sewing it to the quilt front.

The black fabric really frames everything well and ties the outer border together.

 For precise binding machine sewing, I always use my Bernina 240's blind hem foot. 

Washing:

I machine washed the completed quilt twice (cold water, no bleach) including dye trapping sheets (I use either Color Catchers or Color Grabbers), to absorb the many dark fabric dyes.

After washing, the quilt is soft and wrinkled just right. It's ready to bring a bit of warmth and serve as a reminder of all of the positivity that has been sent out into the universe for its recipient!

🍃QUILT SUMMARY:🍃

I machine pieced this quilt on my Bernina 240.
I quilted this quilt on my Janome QMP-18 long arm.

Finished size: 57" x 70"

Front piecing: 7x9 grid of 63 total foundation string blocks, surrounded by a 1.5" black inner border, and then a 6" wide outer pieced border.

Back: 4.25 yards of celery-green fabric with intricate white print.

Binding: The black-on-black binding is attached by machine.

Quilting: Edge-to-edge "Square Waves" by 627Handworks. Front stitched with Superior Threads' "It's a Boy" (So Fine 50 #435), and back stitched with "Out of the Blue" (So Fine 50 #433).

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