Quilting with Phone Books

I don't use phone books for looking up phone numbers. That is what the internet is for! Nevertheless, no matter how many times I say I don't use phone books, four different companies leave one on my front doorstep every year. Four phone books a year! What a waste of trees! A couple of years ago, I started using phone book pages for foundations for string blocks. Bonnie Hunter from quiltville suggested it, and I've been doing it ever since. I don't make enough string blocks to use four phone books a year, so most of them still go straight into recycling. I had four phone books in the house this morning, saved for quilting. Now I have two phone books left, and two of them are cut into foundations, in the sizes I tend to make string blocks.


These are the sizes of string blocks I make most often, 3 1/2", 4 1/2", 6 1/2", and 8 1/2". I happily cut two of the phone books up into these sizes, knowing I would use them. I still had a few of these sizes left from my last phone book cutting spree. I didn't have to cut any 3 1/2" foundations for step 2 of the Orca Bay Mystery quilt, because I had enough already. I use an old style guillotine paper cutter to cut up my phone books. I can cut 10-15 pages at a time, and I finished cutting two huge phone books up in less than two hours. It would have only taken one, but the grandtwins were fussy babies today and needed lots of love.

I'm ready to start on step 4 of the mystery quilt tomorrow. I only cut enough 5 1/2" phone book paper squares for this step, as it is a size I don't normally use. If we end up needing more, I still have two more phone books! I am using green strings for the mystery quilt, but my purple strings are out for the next stocking I need to make. I was hoping I'd be done by now, the last two stockings as far as sewing on the strings were concerned, but I didn't sew near as much as I had hoped this week. I was trying to catch up on Christmas activities this week, and I had a birthday celebration for DS the Younger to do as well. At least I finished step 3 before step 4 came out :-)