I had a blast yesterday in the quilting studio! I needed to put together a mini for a gift (yes another one) and decided to start a new leaders and enders project. I didn't have anything planned or ready (such is the state of my life these days), so grabbed on of my jars of scraps and set to work.
This jar is full of 1" pieces of reproduction fabric. Pretty much anything you can think of cut in a 1" strip of any size right down to a square. It was looking rather stuffed full, so I pulled out the prettiest pieces, mixed them up with the strange looking strips, and voila! A lovely, eye-catching small quilt made purely out of scraps!
I have several different scrap bins to organize fabrics before they get down the the 1" size. One for Jo Morton fabric (so it's easy to find for Jo's Little Women Club patterns), one for civil war reproduction fabrics, and one for everything else. Once a scrap is too small to keep in the baskets for larger small pieces (is that an oxymoron?), I cut what's left into 1.5" squares and 1" strips for my jars.
I have made several quilts from the 1.5" squares jar and it has been replenished many times. It's great to think I'm "going green" and scrounging fabric down to the last thread so as not to waste it. This paper bag garbage bag that I re-use regularly for the remnants of projects is all I have collected after four small quilts have been made over the past week or so. Not too shabby if you ask me!
Now I have to sew the blocks together and the top will be finished. I used six 1" strips to make a 3.5" unfinished block. Each block is totally random and I pretty much just grabbed a fabric and sewed it on to the last strip. It was stepping outside my box a little since I like organized randomness. This time I sucked it up and sewed anyway! Soon my Sticks and Stones quilt will be showing itself off on a table of chest somewhere in the house.
What about you? How small are the scraps you save? Do you have a spot for them?
Happy quilting!
Heather
4 comments:
Lovely work Heather, glad you had a fun day in your sewing space, I've been busy washing fabric after I did my laundry of course!!!
I never throw any scrap away, if I can get a 1/4" or 1/8" seam around all sides, then it is saved for it's new life, bound to show up anywhere LOL! Sometimes the best quilts are those that are totally unplanned and seemingly disorganised!!! They tend to have lots of character!!!
Right now, I am not even throwing away the smallest scrap. Instead, I am saving them to stuff a pillow for my dog's bed. Use and reuse and when it is too dirty or nested to reuse then empty and refill with more scraps.
That is a great little scrap quilt! Looks like you had fun! I love your little jars of strips, cute, cute!
LOVE your organized approach~!!~
i save anything one inch or larger for sewing and everything smaller i throw into a bag and use to randomly embellish muslin; tossing it down onto the muslin base and using a large machine zig-zag stitch overall. i call it "thread nesting". it produces some fun confetti like pieces that i've used for (Christmas) stocking cuffs, postcard making, ornaments and other embellishments.
in other words: i can't stand to throw much away.
:-)
libbyQ
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