What on Earth is a String Quilt?
In the quilting world, long skinny scraps of fabric are sometimes referred to as "strings". You often end up with these "strings" after cutting pieces for a quilt from yardage. There may be a few inches of fabric leftover after all of your WOF cuts are made. Save these "strings" to make a string quilt! It's basically a quilt of random sized strips sewn together! I save anything long and around 3"-.75" wide in my "string" bin.
I was very inspired by Emily Dennis from Quilty Love's string quilt (see it HERE).
There are lots of different configurations for how to do string quilt blocks. My personal favorites are when the strips are sewn at an angle like Emily's. But you're the boss of your quilt, so if you want to sew them at an un-jaunty angle, please do!
This is truly one of the most relaxing, fun quilts I've ever made. It's easy, mindless, and the results are (IMO) adorable!
How To Make a String Quilt
Collect all of your fabric "strings". I think it looks best when you take the time to curate your fabrics and stick to a color palette of some sort so everything is scrappy, but still cohesive. For mine, I wanted to stick with mostly pastels with a few pops of cobalt blue.
To keep the angle of your strips consistent and to make trimming your blocks easy-peasy, you'll want to use a foundation paper. Don't worry FPP haters, it's not FPP! Relax!
You'll need an angle line on your papers. I'm lazy and did not want to draw a million lines by hand, so I made myself a quick printable template. You can grab it HERE (the PDF will come to your email inbox!). If you do want to draw them, the angle I used was 60 degrees, but once again, you do you. If you're wanting to do a chevron or diamond design, you'll need half angled to the left and half angled to the right.
If you're using my template, you'll print it on normal size printer paper and cut it right down the middle. Print as many papers as you want blocks (remember each paper will make (2) 8.5"x5.5" (unfinished) blocks because you're cutting each paper in half.)
To start your block, grab two random strips and put them right sides together, aligning them along the long edge. Place them on top of the paper with the lined up edges of the fabrics right along the angle line printed/drawn on the paper. It doesn't matter if it's above or below the line. Make sure the strips go past the edges of the paper so when you open them up, they cover all the way to the edge.
Use a 1/4" seam allowance and sew the strips of fabric together right on top of the paper (you're sewing through the paper, just for this seam!) Try to stay parallel to the line on the paper as you sew. On my 1/4" quilting presser foot, I have a guide bar. I literally just keep the guide bar right on top of the line as I sew this first seam.
Once it's sewn, take the whole unit over to your ironing station and fold the strip on top back so both of the pretty sides of the 2 fabric "strings" are showing. Press that seam nice and flat right on top of the paper. The seam allowance will be pressed to the side as you do this.
You can trim the "strings" even with the paper after you press, or just roughly trim them close-ish and trim at the end (that's what I do).
To add the next strip, fold the paper on the seam line (so it's out of the way) and add another "string" RST to the other edge of one of the previously sewn "strings". Make sure to double check that it will fully cover the paper.
Sew, press, trim and repeat until the whole paper is covered, then carefully trim the block so it's even with the paper. The papers can then be removed. Since we only stitched one line through them, they tear off easily.
Once all of your blocks are assembled, sew them together in whatever configuration you desire and you've got yourself a string quilt! Enjoy!
If this tutorial was helpful, share it with a quilting friend!