Feeling Scrappy?
A roundup of 3 super scrappy, sustainably made quilts, and my two cents for the brand new beginner quilter.
Scrap quilts are my favorite.
I love the polished look of a quilt that is all uniform and I love a fabric that is purchased intentionally for a person in mind but working with scraps really gets me going.
Working with scraps allows for a more sustainable, creative, and memorable approach to quilting.
The first quilt I made was a scrap quilt. I made an Irish Chain, didn’t follow a pattern and just figured it out as I went. I worked on it alongside my sister as she was also a pretty new quilter. We occasionally called our mom and asked what the heck we should do next. We waffled back and forth saying “Starting with a king size is a great idea because you have so much opportunity to practice” and “starting with a baby size quilt seems way more appropriate” and also saying “starting with all of these scraps makes this so much harder” and “starting with scraps is great because I have very little $$ invested in it.” At the end of this experience I can confidently say that I would not recommend starting with a king size scrap quilt as your first quilting project. I enjoyed the process but would like to advise a smaller more uniform project as the probability of abandoning a project like this is very high.
After making my scrappy Irish Chain quilt I wanted to try another quilt, but wanted it to be a lot less intense of a process from the previous one. I still had a lot of scraps that I wanted to use, and had been eyeing up the Tiny Tiles pattern for a long time so I got started right away. This quilt is a throw size, and now happily lives in my nephew’s nursery. I love the berry theme to the fabric supplemented with some other scraps :). I finished it off with a bed sheet backing from Target to keep my budget really low for this quilt.
To use up a considerable amount of my scraps after a few other projects, I started with no direction besides aiming for a checker pattern. I had a bunch of 2.5” strips from Irish chains and that became my standard for processing fabric.
A note on sustainability: At this point, you are probably wondering where all of these scraps came from, as I was a new quilter. Here is one of the most fun things about making quilting sustainable! Most of these scraps were hand me downs from my super crafty sisters and some were from my own random little projects I attempted in the past. Some of my scraps were even from our family stash from when I was a kid. If you are just getting started I would recommend asking around to your family and friends if they have any fabric they would be willing to part with or consider using your old dress shirts/ dresses. Usually that fabric is pretty fun to quilt with. Some of the fabric in this quilt is actually my brother in laws old boxers!!
Okay, back to the quilt! I was aimless for awhile and then as I worked on it and it grew bigger and bigger I realized this would be a perfect quilt for my parents’ bed- and it is! My twin sister and I worked on it as much as we could together over the summer. It took a tremendous amount of time and effort; the most laborious quilt I have made to date. I am so happy with how it turned out and my parents love it too. My dad sleeps with the tag close to his chest and newly makes the bed every morning. How sweet is that?
Time making things for people you love is always time well spent.
Love you,
Elaina