Blocks and more blocks

I thought I'd do a post about some of the blocks I've made lately, as I continue to have a good time going through my stash and using as much of it as I can. I joined the Yahoo group Stashbuster, where the focus is on not buying more fabric, but using your stash. I clearly fail at the first part, as I even bought more fabric today, but I think I do a good job of making things out of my stash.  I like to use as much of my fabric as possible - anything larger than 3/4" square gets used.

These are 10.5" blocks made from strings. I started with 5.5" squares of phone book pages, sewed the strings (alternating between light and dark) at a diagonal, trimmed up the squares, and sewed them together in groups of 4 to make the 10.5" blocks. This stack has 57 large blocks in it, from 228 smaller ones.  I keep my strings in photo storage boxes (the ones that are the size of large shoeboxes) - and those boxes are overflowing again. So I need to make more string blocks, wonky log cabins, and crumb blocks!

I wrote about these in a previous post.  I've gone through my scraps, and used the solids or tone-on-tones to make up a bunch of what I call "kits," and then use them for the bases of these stars. I have a basket of 3" squares along with other scraps that make up the star centers and points, and I assemble these while using them as leaders and enders.  The above picture has 40 stars in it already, and I made 3 more just today while working on a couple of blocks for Boomerang.  I've got these planned for two  "mish  mash" quilts - one is for Jo's Crumb Along,  and the other is a medallion quilt I started based on ideas from Bumblebeans 15 Minutes Play.

These are some assorted blocks I've collected using up even more scraps. The Shoo Flys were made using up a bunch of leftover HST squares and some 4- and 9-patches I'm using for the centers.  They, too, are now set up in "kits," so more of them will be on the way as I continue with other projects.

More spare blocks, most likely destined for the two mish mash quilts.

This is a basket of 280 9-patch blocks. For a long time I was using 1.5" squares as leaders and enders, sewing them into 9-patches.  Every time I made 10, I'd pin them together and throw them in the basket. I guess that's enough for a quilt. I haven't decided how to do them - sashing or not, alternating with solid blocks, etc.  I welcome any and all ideas!  Half of them have light corners, and half have dark corners.

Tonight I have a meeting at our local community center - the main purpose is to discuss how to continue using the center and raise money to keep it open. I'm on the agenda to propose a quilting class making all the stuff above.  There are so many classes at the local shops about traditional projects, and some of my guild members have expressed an interest in learning how to use up their stash doing some of the things I do.  I'll report later how that proposal goes.