So What's With Those Strips?

Okay, now I can show you part of what I was up to last night with the strips.

Easter eggs!  And this is pretty much all I can show you for now.  Oh, not because I'm being super secretive, but just because I haven't worked out much else yet.  I just knew I wanted Easter eggs in a project.  Will I applique them onto a square?  A long runner?  Hummm.  I haven't  a clue.  But I do have another stack of future egg strips there in the upper left corner of the photo.  Those didn't turn out quite as large, so they'll be smaller eggs--you can kind of see my two freezer paper templates.  I'll be making four more smaller eggs that may be added to these four large eggs or may be a smaller project on their own.

Do you want to know what I did to get this far?  Please feel free to make Easter eggs of your own!

First I cut those strips you saw last night.

To do that, I assembled some random pastel fabric scraps--a little less than fat quarters--and cut a strip or two off each.  To make an egg, I cut one center strip that measured 2" or 2-1/4" by about 5-1/2".  After that, I cut three more pairs of strips that varied in width but were all about 5-1/2" long.  The narrowest pair measured 1" and the widest pair measured 1-3/4".  I then pieced them together.  I've also added some ric rac trim down the center of each egg.  For now, I've just used applique glue to secure the trim, but when I quilt the piece, I'll sew the ric rac down by machine.

Finally, I cut an egg-shaped template out of freezer paper, ironed it to the back of a strip set, and trimmed the fabric edges so they were about 1/4" away from the paper all around.  I turned the edges under to the back and thread basted around the egg, stitching through the paper.  When I was done, I pressed the edges front and back, sprayed them with starch on the back, and pressed again until the egg and the paper were dry.  Then I removed the stitching, carefully peeled off the paper, and went on to the next egg.

Tomorrow night?  The egg saga continues.