I am making a string quilt and have used a thin muslin to sew the "strings" to although you can also use phone book pages or other thin paper. My strips or strings vary in size depending on what I have in my scrap stash. I've done 4 squares so far (it's my fill in project, so no rush) and they look very nice. I have used white as the first and center string going from corner to diagonal corner for each block.