Tutorial – String Piecing Without a Foundation

Since the individual blocks are only 3.5″ in size, I decided smaller strings were in order, so I cut mine between 0.75″ and 1.5″ wide by 11″ long. Feel free to experiment with other sizes, but keep in mind, with a quarter-inch seam allowance, you don’t want to go much smaller. As for the length and quantity, keep reading (before you start cutting!) and we’ll discuss that at the end.

Grab two random strings, put right sides together, and sew them together. I used a scant quarter inch seam allowance, but whatever works for you.

Grab the next two strings, put right sides together, and sew them together. You’ll notice in the above pictures I’m strip piecing them which really speeds up the process. Just keep grabbing two pieces, and sewing them together.

I restacked my pairs of strips that I’ve sewn together with the seams all facing the same way.

Then grab two of your strip pairs, place them right sides together and sew them together. 

You’ll notice, at no point have I suggested you stop and iron. I mean, you can if you are into that sort of thing, but well, hmm… why would you?

Just keep going, sewing all of your strips together. This is a really quick process because you’re literally just sewing small pieces of fabric together in a straight line over and over again.

Here we are now, pairs upon pairs sewn together.

And finally, dozens of strings sewn together to make a wall of strings!

Now, it’s time to go visit the iron for the very first time! I pressed all of these seems to the side in about 30 seconds. Can you imagine the insanity of pressing those open? I mean, really.

Next up is the cutting process, which honestly, is the trickiest part because you’ll need to know how to use your ruler a bit. Remember: measure twice and cut once!

Even though this angle is marked 45, it is in reference to the other two angles of the connected triangle. It is still a 90 angle which is what we need. In the picture below, you’ll see the diagonal edge of the ruler runs from the 7″ to the 4.5″ markings which equals a distance of 3.5″–the sides of our squares. At the same time, you want to ensure the lines meeting at 45* are parallel and perpendicular to your fabric panel. Remember: measure twice and cut once.

Once you’ve successfully made the first cut, measure 3.5″ parallel away from it and cut again across the panel.

Keep cutting at 3.5″ intervals for the length of the panel.

Then cross cut at 90* angles, and thus creating your squares.

Because I sometimes can’t count, I thought I only needed 12, 3.5″ squares, which is what I originally created and photographed. Yeah, you need 16!

Finally, just lay your 3.5″ squares out as you see fit and sew them back together. Because of all of the bulk, I did press the seems of the blocks open after sewing them together.

Here is my final bock layout, all sewn up, with no foundation in sight (and minimal ironing!) 

Now, I said we’d come back to the size of strings you need. I think you get the general concept of what we’re doing here: making a string panel that you then cut the shapes that you need from. Because of that, the panel size can shift and change based on what YOU need. However, I mocked up diagrams to show three potential panel sizes to get the 16, 3.5″ blocks needed. Keep in mind that each square is 5″ across, and you can do some of your own quilty math to get what’s right for you.   

The number of strings you need all depends on their width and the length of your panel. As reference, if you had 60 strings each averaging about 1″ wide, and took away the seam allowance (29.5″) the length of the panel would be 30.5″, perfect for option two below!

• At least 44″ (including seam allowances) of 8″ strings to get 16 blocks.
• At least 30″ (including seam allowances) of 10″ strings to get 17 blocks.
• At least 21″ (including seam allowances) of 16″ strings to get 18 blocks.

And there you have it: string piecing without a foundation. Now, Mama needs a drink!