Can you believe it is already February? Time flies I guess when you are busy quilting along!
So here we are already starting our second quilt of my
scrap series. No worries if you haven't finished the
last one. There will be lots of opportunities to join in throughout the year. If you missed the first quilt, I have created a
Scrap-A-Palooza page which has a gallery of all the scrap quilts and links to all the posts. When you are ready to sew up your scraps, you might be inspired by some of the quilts you see there.
I always find it interesting that as soon as I am finishing up one scrap quilt, I'm looking for inspiration for the next one. As I was cleaning out my sewing room and putting fabric back into my stash closet, I started sorting the 1930s fabrics that I have been trying to sew up. Even with completing the
Churn Dash and
Log Cabin quilts, I still have quite a pile of scraps!
As I was folding them up, I was really enjoying how the green and orange fabrics looked together. Before I knew it, I had quite a stack of fabrics all piled up and my fabrics for my next scrap quilt came together.
These scraps are what I refer to as "chunks". Pretty much all of them are fat quarters that have been cut into for previous projects. As I like to keep my scrap quilts simple with minimal cutting, I wanted to keep the pieces in this quilt fairly large. My motto...The less cutting the better!
I also knew I was going to need some sort of sashing (or background) and I came across this leftover one yard piece of nice quality muslin. Having a limited amount of fabric created a bit of a challenge but an idea was forming in my head and this piece would be just about enough.
My vision for this quilt is a scrappy patchwork quilt with a pieced center that "ripples out" alternating prints and backgrounds.
In my mind, I thought it would be fun to have the prints starting in the center and echoing out to the edges with the muslin in between, kind of like the ripples on a pond. So now it is time to get cutting...
Almost all of my fabric pieces were 18" wide (as they started life as a fat quarter) so to get the best yield, I decided to cut my squares all 4 1/2".
To narrow the colors in the quilt, I kept to oranges, sage green and peachy pinks. I also had a few fabrics that contained these colors on a light background.
I felt I had a nice array of colors and prints.
As I was cutting up the fabric, the pieces I couldn't cut to size, I cut up into 2 1/2" to store for later. Then it came to me that this quilt could also be done substituting a cute little four patch in place of the larger blocks.
So if you store your scraps in 2 1/2" squares, this pattern would be perfect for your scraps!
So what do you say, are you ready to sew some more scraps?!?
As you sort through your scraps for inspiration, remember to narrow your fabric choices down to keep your quilt cohesive. This is what I refer to as "naming the quilt". You are not giving your quilt a name, but you are defining the fabrics that will be used. In my example, I have named this quilt my "1930's green and orange ripple quilt". As I cut my scraps, I only used fabrics that would fit into that definition. I truly think doing this is what helps to ensure a successful, eye-appealing scrap quilt.
Now off we go to finish cutting up
our scraps. I will meet you back here in about a week and we will start
laying out our quilts.
Here's an overview of the important stuff to do before the next step!
- "Name your Quilt" or determine your quilt theme/colors
- Pull your scraps/stash. Think about what to use for the background fabric
- Cut your scraps into desired chunk sizes or cut/sew up your 4 patches
- And most importantly, get creative and have fun!
So let me know if you are joining in and tackling the scraps in
your own sewing rooms. I would love to include some pictures and links to your projects. Feel free to grab the button in the sidebar
to share with your readers so they know what you are up to.
And if you have any
questions, don't hesitate to contact me.
Now let's Party!
