Sweet Charity Sewing Day and Finished Stack and Whack

It was Nancy's day to pick a quilt to construct in record time.  She called this Stacks of strings.  I was fascinated by this block and we sewed like crazy this afternoon and made enough blocks for two fairly decent sized quilts.  This was just to show what it would look like when done.

It is not obvious how this is made or how it goes together from the pictures and I was very curious as I love scrap quilts (you might have noticed).  The block is made up of two 4 1/2 inch by 10 inch rectangles.  

Our process was to first make strip sets at least 5 1/2 inches wide and 10 inches in length.  The triangles were already cut so I don't know their height but may try one on my own to make up a pattern.  

We then attached one of these light strip sets to a 60 degree triangle on the right hand side and then a strip on the left hand side.

Each of the steps is done by a different person -- one sews, one irons, one trims.  The final step after the strip sets were attached was to place a ruler on this odd looking thing and trim to line up with the bottom of the triangle and the top of the triangle.  Then the ruler is placed so that the 5 1/2 inch mark is at the point of the triangle and it is cut to a rectangle.  We wasted a bit of fabric but these were literally scraps.  I think it would be more efficient to cut the strip sets into diamonds using a 60 degree ruler marking and then we would only be trimming a bit off.  Don't know how wide the diamonds would have to be but will work through one.  It was important to always have the light darks consistently on the same side.

Here is a display of some of the blocks we did so you can see how they fit together.

This is the second of the stack and whacks from the same fabric.  It ended up being about 45 x 60 inches so a decent size.

I ended up putting all the second set of blocks up on the design wall and decided that it didn't do it for me so will use the format I used for the other two and use white fabric for the setting triangles.  Don't know whether it will result in one or two quilts.  The radial symmetry is so pretty in some of them, I think they need to show off more!