Julienm1

Have lots of strings in my stash so time to sew them into something useful. ? is...what is the narrowest width of string to use. One inch seems way to narrow to use, Am I right?

cashs_mom

A 1" strip will finish as 1/2" which wouldn't be too narrow to use in my opinion.

Julienm1

TYSM for your expert opinion! Off to the races I go as soon as I cut some pages from old telephone book.

GingerK

I use 1 inch strips sometimes. It depends on whether I am using a foundation (thin old sheet, ultra light fusible interfacing or something else) The foundation helps to keep the strips from stretching and bowing, but also allows me to use a 1/8 inch seam on the strip I am attaching. I lay the thinner strip a tad to the left so that when I sew, it will have the 1/8 inch seam allowance but the strip underneath will have 1/4 inch. I also make a point of shortening my stitch length. The narrower seam allowance will be enclosed which will protect it from raveling.

joe'smom

In the past I've usually ended up cutting my strings especially for a project (because I have yet to deal with my scraps). In the case where I am cutting them, I start with 1 1/4". I can't remember what width I've gone up to for my thickest width.

Onebyone

You don't want narrow strips because your quilt will be very heavy with all the seams. Also I use a fat 1/4 inch seam to sew the strips together. The seam width can be any size or vary, doesn't make any difference but better to be wider so all the edges are secure.

sewingpup

I use strings between 1 and 2.5 inches mostly unless it is going to be a big quilt then I go up to 3 inches. I have put as narrow as 3/4 an inch sting in but you do not want to put too any of those because having more seams than top fabric would make for a very heavy quilt as well as take a really long time and lots of thread to piece. I do love the look however of that little 1/4 inch color pop between two more subtle fabrics.

cashs_mom

Oh, yes! I like that too, Sewingpup. I often use the narrow strips in the same way. A pop of color or design can really jazz up and quilt.

KalamaQuilts

depends on the finished size of your blocks too. If you are doing say, a 4" finished block, you need the 1"-ish strings or your won't get any fabric on your block If you are doing a 10" block wider strings are more appropriate.
Also might depend if the strings are sashings, or will be borders, or are to be just part of a bigger standard stitched block.

You also need to think about if you are going to split the blocks and resew them, then you'd start with bigger blocks.
Bonnie Hunter has some nice free string blocks on her Free Patterns tab on her blog.

I've done all of the above, all turned out very striking! I do sew on paper because the widths aren't consistent so the finished size needs to be bigger and trimmed down because it's easy to go crooked just sewing them together in the standard way.
In this improv I used all the techniques I made this while I was caring for my mother who had dementia. There is never time to think so I set my machine up by her chair and just sewed strings.

Gemm

String and crumb piecing can be so therapeutic! I agree in general with the comments about narrow strips - the smaller the block/project, the smaller you can go but they tend to be better as occasional inclusions rather than the rule.