Pink Lemonade Flimsy

Before we get to the Lemonade let me show you how the row-by-row flimsy stands:

There are one inch sashing strips separating each row, all of them pieced of the neutral prints I'd used in the blocks. I toyed with the idea of a couple of them being in color but decided to go with the simplest route instead. I believe it was the next day that I went back to my LQS to see what I could find for the border. I ended up bringing home some of the very same print I'd purchased for the quilt back! I didn't realize it at the time of course. Oh well. It will certainly provide continuity between the front and the back! I did pick up an additional print in a contrasting color that I'm thinking I will use as a narrow frame before the border. But I haven't been in the mood to tackle that. I wanted some color, some REAL color, after all those subdued hues.

Time to bring out the Pink Lemonade!

This was the equivalent of a jelly roll, 40 strips in mostly pinks and yellows. I added a few more prints and colors so I would have enough to make a 64" x 75" top. After hearing about and doing a bit of research into the 1600" quilts that folks were racing each other to make I decided to give that a try. It turned out to be quite fun.

It certainly was easy enough. The first step is to sew your strips together, end to end, until you have one long, l-o-o-o-o-o-o-n-g strip (mine was about 2400"). I did that on Phoebe, my smaller and slower machine. It was delightfully mindless. At least until I got near the end when I realized I'd better pay attention so I wouldn't end up with the same print repeating itself over and over!

Then I moved over to Ruby Blue for the long seams that create the top. She sews faster and would make quicker work of potentially boring sewing. Basically you take that long strip, fold it over on itself, and sew until you get to the bottom. Cut the strip in half at the fold that occurs down there, bring the end of the strip back up to the top again and do it all over.

I repeated those steps until I had a total of 32 strips. Such happy colors for a gloomy day!

I took the time to heat-set my seams between steps but I have not yet pressed them one way or the other. That will require something interesting on TV to listen to while I stand at the ironing board. Right now I'm just wallowing in the lovely summeriness of this top I created in two days' time. :- D

This process was enjoyable enough and so quick that I'm seriously thinking I will use it again soon. It could be that this is what I've been waiting for to use up my 2.5" scrap strips. I might like to try it with wider strips too... So many possibilities!