How To Use Fabric Scraps

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If you’re like me you might have a reasonably large pile of fabric scraps. You don’t need them for your current project, but you also don’t want to throw them away. You don’t like the word hoarder to describe the state of your quilting area, especially if the pile of scraps can be used for something else.

Don’t let anyone judge you for your fabric scrap pile. They just can’t see the possibilities you and I can. They lack your imagination and fortitude.

We spend ages searching for the perfect quilt fabrics at the shop. Some fabrics stir up fond memories and some were just downright expensive. Maybe it’s a piece of fabric you’ve had for years or an old sheet you just can’t part with.

I tend to hold onto my scraps because it’s kind of a waste of money. Tossing out a perfectly usable, beautiful piece of fabric is silly. Let’s conserve our fabrics. Reduce, reuse, recycle right? Consider yourself an environmentalist; a conscientious fabric scrap keeper.

Organized fabric scraps for quilting.

So what can we do with all of our fabric scraps?

Crazy Quilts, improv quilts, and crumble quilts are my go to solution. There’s no set pattern and it’s entirely customizable to the fabric scraps in your collection.

“What’s the difference between crazy, improv, and crumb quilting,” you may ask. Well, I don’t entirely know. So you tell me.

Seriously, tell me what the difference is if you know.

I really should scour the internet for more information about the matter, but I got excited about this blog and just wanted to share this with you.

The one difference I do know about is that traditional crazy quilts are often made from multiple different types of fabric like silk, velvet, and so forth. They also have lovely embroidery to frame out each piece of fabric like a showcase. I do not know how to do such fancy embroidery. Consider it one of my unmastered (unknown) skills; one I may never learn.

Do you have a crazy quilt? Comment below with pictures.

Take out your fabric scraps.

Dust them off and pet them like the little gems that they are. Take a look at the different shapes. If they are less than a half inch wide this might be the time to lovingly place them into the garbage… or wad them up in a tight ball and hurl them at the wall. Hopefully, that will ricochet into a garbage bin of some kind. Whatever suits your current mood.

After that organize your scraps by size; smallest to biggest. It helps if you have a steady color palette. If not that’s okay, too. Color palettes are subjective. Below you can see what I started with most recently from the good ole’ fabric scraps pile.

Tiny piles of triangle scraps.

Starting to assemble scraps.

Sew into strips and blocks.

You can start multiple blocks at once.

Each block starts with a few small scraps that fit together. Just sew them up. You can let the size and shape of each scrap determine how you sew them together.

The way I like to start is just sewing together the smallest shapes and let the next smallest scraps determine kind of where they go. The rules are very loose. You can always use a longer or bigger scrap and cut it back down to size to meet your needs.

Ruler, rotary cutter, and iron.

These tools are your friends. Check out my blog about the tools you need or grab your supplies at my affiliate links here (Fiskars set and iron). Make sure your rotary blade is sharp and be careful when cutting. Keep one hand on the ruler and the other on your rotary cutter. Here’s a great video from Jenny Doan with the basics about cutting fabric.

After each seam you sew, cut the fabric down to size and square it off. Then iron the seams either to the dark side, pressed open, or all in one direction. Let’s say if I am doing a log-cabin-style pattern then I’ll press everything towards the raw edges of the fabric. But it’s up to you. Just be consistent.

Ironing your seams is important

Ironing is very important after you sew on each piece. This allows your piecing to lay flat and reduce bulky seams. Here you can see the back side of my pieced block.

Log cabin-ish pattern.

I like to piece a few small bits together and then use a loose log cabin framework. The widths don’t all need to match. Nothin needs to be exact. I just use the log cabin as an example. Most likely our scraps aren’t going to lend well to a perfect pattern. You’re basically adding strips and scraps to whichever side or area where they make sense.

Go easy on yourself if it doesn’t all fit together. You can finagle the pieces or even pull from your nice, bigger pieces of fabric that aren’t technically scraps. You make the rules.

I think of it like this: Quilting is a hobby and an art form. If it doesn’t make you happy or bring you joy, then bend the rules or ditch the rules. If none of it is fun, ditch the whole thing.

For example, my first quilt was queen sized and I was hand-quilting the whole thing. Did I mention this was my first quilt? 101 rookie mistake is starting too big, or so I’ve heard.

So I ditched it. It was too hard and felt like a job. Later, I came back to it and finally finished it and was very happy. Then I lost it in the mail (very upsetting). I talk about the experience here. Anyhow, now I quilt for fun as much as humanly possible (that might be an overstatement, though).

On with it.

Triangles and little bits.

If you have a ton of triangles and odd little bits just start sewing those together. Sew as many together as you care to. You can add strips or squares to these anywhere they make sense to start getting bigger blocks. These are likely going to be the centers of your blocks. They can be fillers in other parts of your blocks, too.

Square up your blocks.

One helpful method is to eventually get your blocks to reach a consistent sized square. Say you have nine crazy/improv/crumble blocks. Each can be about 10.5″ x 10.5″ to make a complete wall hanging size of 30″ x 30″. Adjust your sizes or number of blocks depending on what size you’d like the finished quilt to be.

You can also add sashing between each block to create a cohesive look and give the eye a break between each square. Visually you are able to kind of appreciate the piecing of each block a bit more with the sashing.

Assemble your scraps.

Use your ruler to square it up.

Trim down your edges with caution.

Peel away the loose pieces.

Squared up, pieced fabric block.

 

Or vary your block sizes.

This method is for Tetris lovers. You’ll end up putting together a big fabric puzzle, which I think is pretty fun. So you can have a few various sizes of blocks, maybe some long ones. Eventually, you’ll need to fit them all together and that’s when the puzzle fun begins. You may need to add a couple of extra pieces of fabric here and there to get it just right.

 

Think about which block or Tetris style would work for your crazy quilt. What’s more your style?

Colors.

As mentioned before, I have a fairly predictable color palette. So most all of my fabrics go together. Also, I tend to buy similar styles of fabric designs. This makes picking from my fabric scraps pile easier. With a similar color palette I’m mostly focused on the sizes and don’t have to worry much about which colors to pick.

You can use any color or fabric that you want. The colors don’t really even have to match. A lot of quilters like the term “scrappy” quilt for seemingly mismatched fabrics. But everyone has their own sense of color and that’s okay.

Are you a color snob or is color no biggie (the quilting alone is proof of your artistry)?

Alternatively, you could use all blue fabrics or all polka dot fabrics or all animal prints. There are so many options of how to theme your quilt. But that’s for another blog.

Haul out your fabric scraps.

Lug them out of their long forgotten, dark cave of despair. You knew this day would come. Flipping through the fabrics takes you back in time to past projects and old favorites or those odd bits that never quite fit into your other projects.

Now is the time to play around and see what works. You can use your trusty seam ripper if something gets sewed on backwards or you don’t love a color combination, but try not to get too caught up in the nitty gritty details. Below is a slideshow of some piecing I’ve done most recently with my scraps.

Have fun with your scraps and let me know what original designs you come up with.

Fabric scrap blocks.

Crazy, improv, or crumble quilt?

Pieced blocks.

Do Hot Summers Equal Creativity?

Maybe they did for me. My mom would turn the swamp cooler on before sunrise on our ninety degree summer days. She’d draw all of the curtains closed and, when I’d wake up, she’d declare, “It’s gonna be 90+ degrees today, so we’re not leaving the house!” We are pale people, just for a little background. Plus, I would get heat rash (hives from the friggin’ sun, people) and headaches from the heat. So I was completely okay with these hot day house arrest scenarios.

One thing that would happen is sooner or later I would tell Mom that I was bored. At which point, Mom would say, “There’s no excuse for boredom. That’s not allowed in this house.” Then she’d proceed to give me a tour of everything in the house not to be bored with; books, the full encyclopedia set, endless art supplies, and musical instruments. I became the child who who spend endless hours in my room entertaining myself with art projects, reading, making puzzles, rearranging my room, and day dreaming. She trained me well and I really thank her for that.

These days my two creative outlets (did you read my first blog about creativity and hoarding?) are quilting and drawing. Drawing is my first passion in life. I remember going to Tower Movies, waiting in line to check out with Mom, and tracing the cardboard movie cut-outs with my eyes so I’d be able to draw it later at home. Soon I learned to always carry a notebook and pencil around with me.

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Recently, as of March 29th, I had decided to buy a new sketchbook after having only used my iPad for art for a solid year while we were in Oakland. I wanted to get that feeling of ink on paper again and started a self-imposed #100dayproject. Too long. I was good for a solid forty-five days, but then found myself bartering by drawing a few at a time, and then only posting one per day. Cheating. Then we moved to our current city and my mom gave me the sewing machine. So, between work and life, my creative time is spent drawing, quilting, or writing (now with the blog). There’s only so much time in the day. Plus, we want to watch an episode of That 70’s Show or whatever before bed. Needless to say, and I will say it, my drawings haven’t been getting center stage. I love to sit down with a quilt pattern idea for hours at a time. The time I’ve been spending drawing lately has been ridiculous ideas for quilt patterns. So I’m showing you a few and then I’ll show you my latest quilt pattern idea (still in progress).

First, let me show you some drawings for potential quilt patterns. Let it be known that I have a limited color palette to choose from.

Drawing of a quilt pattern

Quilt pattern drawing ideas

Drawing of a quilt pattern idea

I had this grand idea that curves would be easy; just a bunch of hand applique. Then it really sank in that it’s all by hand with that darned, wonderful invisible stitch that takes a million years. I looked at a video that shows a way to do it by machine, but am not super convinced if I like the look. I’d have to get a very similar thread, or be okay with a contrasting thread, or perhaps the invisible thread I’ve been hearing whispers about as of late. Also, what about the raw edge of fabric? Well, I looked up the drunkard’s path template and found it for around forty dollars, to which I said to myself, “That’s a firm no.”

Lo and behold a few weeks later pass and I find that same template with a no-slip feature at Joanne’s for twenty-seven dollars made by Omnigrid. To which I said, “Yes. Now a few of those patterns are a bit more attainable and I will update you on those projects as they arise.

 

Now to show you my latest attempt at making my own pattern. (Free sorta-pattern alert!)

This is a rough drawing of my Melva quilt pattern.

Alright, now for what I’ve – I mean you’ve been waiting for. Side note, I decided to ditch the circles for now and see how I felt about adding them or not once the quilt top is all stitched together.

Cutting pieces and improvising block sizes for the quilt

Cutting fabric pieces for my quilt

Sewing together pieces of my quilt

I start with the biggest blocks to cut out and actually cut all the pieces initially without yellow, as that was my original idea. Adding the yellow was something I wanted to add, so now I have a bunch of blue scraps. The finalized cut for the blue rectangles is 2.5 inches wide and same for the yellow pieces. The lengths vary as you can see.

Laying out pieces for the quilt

Ironing and rough measuring fabric pieces for the quilt

Piecing mistakes while I sew the quilt pattern together

I didn’t exactly measure out the additional yellow and pink triangles. Admittedly, patience is not always my strong suit. I will say that through this whole process having my pattern handy for reference helped quite a lot. All afternoon I kept looking and reaching for my sketchbook to check and recheck if everything looked how it should. Though mistakes were still made, as you will see.

Laying out fabric pieces before sewing is vital

Making mistakes still happens even when you’re careful with your quilt pattern

Luckily both mistakes were caught before getting buried in the rest of the quilt top. But let me tell you that the second mistake (pictured right) was a long seam to rip. I laid it out in front of my husband and said, “I am frustrated.” I explained the situation and he understood the problem. I sat there for a  good couple of minutes and then ripped out the seam to get back to work. Sometimes you just need to talk it out, have a seat, and collect your thoughts before getting back to the task at hand.

Great stopping point for my quilt top

The chronological order of these from upper right is clockwise. So you can hopefully see through all of the pictures, the order of assembly. This was a bit of a puzzle, which is quite fun for me. The final step (left) is my stopping point. It’s now hanging on the wall waiting for a light border and all the finishing flourishes. I’m considering a yellowish cream, thick border with a dark blue binding.

UPDATE:

I have a few small, ongoing projects as I work on the big-mini quilts and, of course, stall for putting the finishing touches on my king sized quilt. I know; it’s procrastination. But I would argue that it’s productive kind of procrastination. One day I’ll take the splurge to by batting and a backing big enough to finish the Beast.

Half square triangle mini quilt with pink and mint green

Mint green A Font mini quilt

Avocado quilt in pink and mint green

You may be able to see on the avocado quilt where I’d like to do some blind stitching on the left side of the binding. Besides that, these little cuties are done.

Stay tuned next time for progress on the Melva quilt and a project I’ve been wanting to do since I got the drunkard’s path template. Enjoy the day and get creative if you get some time on a hot summer day between work and life.

Adventures in Making a Quilt Pattern and Perfection

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Growing up and as an adult my mom tells me that everything I do is just incredible and so much more amazing than anything else practically in existence. This is a high bar to set, right? Even more so, I have access to seeing what all is out there via the internet, Instagram, etc. So, when I show my mom something that I’ve recently made I brace myself for the elaborately unjustified compliments.

I will say I do have confidence that I am good at making art. I don’t, however, believe that I am the savior and apex of all artistic endeavors. In fact I believe that holding myself up to these standards is quite destructive. I see it in my mom and I used to be like this myself; striving for perfection and never able to attain that. It’s paralyzing and perhaps a bit of masochism, too (not that we derive pleasure from it for the true meaning of the word, but you get the idea).

You see Mom is a writer. She makes beautiful use of words and loves the language. She is the reason I, too, love the language. Growing up we always had a massive dictionary that we’d be ordered to look words up in if we didn’t know their definitions. We played games trying to make up and guess the meanings of words and, of course, played a lot of Scrabble. Mom loves her journalism classes and writes for the school’s newspaper. She writes lovely articles, but verbally abuses herself for them not being up to her personal standards of perfection. I’ve asked her, “Mom, is there any way that any article or piece of writing can be absolutely perfect, even if it’s written be a professional?” She says, “No.” Then I ask her why she holds herself up to these impossible ideals. She understands what I mean and just keeps doing the same behavior.

I’m not trying to harp on my mom. I’m not even saying not to strive for perfection or do the best you can do. What I’m trying to illustrate that, at least for me, constantly critiquing a piece of creativity and making that limit what you put out into the world is not helpful. People will connect to you through your artistic endeavors, but only if you publish them, record them, take pictures, or try selling them. For me, I used to do the same thing as Mom when I was younger to a massive scale. I would be livid if someone looked through my sketchbook without my permission. These days there definitely are pieces I don’t show people and projects that never see the light of day, but it’s a far less percentage. I guess, too, that I’ve become a much better artist from my younger days!

I will say after discussing this with my husband, not everyone is like me. Some people love to redo, revise, edit, and tweak everything until it’s perfect. They find joy in the journey towards perfection. I could be wrong, but I think quilting is a bit challenging for people like that (which is part of why I enjoy it), because constantly ripping out seams is eventually going to shred your fabrics. Most of the tweaking seams to me to be in the constructing of a pattern, which I do find enjoyable, and measuring everything like a million times before cutting.

All of that being said I have a lot of progress to make, but I want to share that progress with other people along the way. Without further ado, here is the process for making my first pattern.

 

Above left you can see my first rendering of the pattern. To the right you’ll see a more concise pattern with two color options. My favorite graph paper notebooks to use for quilt patterns are made by Fabriano, but there are so many great options out there.

At first I wanted to make these beautiful circles (disregard the triangle pattern at the bottom of the first image), but realized I don’t have a pricey drunkard’s path template. (I did end up finding a great template from Joanne’s as mentioned in this blog post). So I opted for those handy half-square triangles. Not perfect, but close. I found a great youtube video which shows you how to design a basic pattern from Fave Quilts. My half square triangles need an additional inch of each fabric from the desired finished block to make two finished blocks. The squares and rectangles just need an additional half inch for the seam allowance.

My vision was blue and yellow. Here’s the sequence of cutting and sewing my pattern:

 

I love the bright yellow with white lines, but I ran out of the fabric. So I had to improvise. Not perfect, but close. I wanted to get the tall blocks and half square triangles completed first, because they seemed like the best first steps to take. Check out my previous blog for a great video from Angela Walters showing half-square triangles made easy. I’m a big fan and watch all of her videos. For other technical help with quilting I love Fons and Porter, Quilty, Sew Very Easy, and Missouri Star. More on those later. Next step for me was assembling the small squares and the half-square triangles with squares as shown below:

 

I really like the process of working in small, manageable portions at a time. Whenever I had a big task in life I used to just feel overwhelmed and put it off to the last minute. Then I’d totally flip out when the deadline is the next day or something. This does nothing for my natural leanings towards anxiety (born and raised; thank you very much). So with quilting I like to keep it as anxiety-free and pleasure-filled as possible. This may be why I have no patience for perfection! If it takes me away from being able to sew in the moment (having to wait for an order, for example), then it’s not fun for me. Sewing is my hobby and there’s no point in making that stressful.

Once I got everything assembled it was fun to play with the different arrangements.

 

Just imagine all the possibilities. I played with the different variations for a while as it kind of celebrated the long day of completing so much of the project within an afternoon. I’d say it took three to five hours as we were entertaining guests and my set up isn’t quite the most efficient. Below you can see the final placement, which I did sew together that evening.

 

I felt pretty good at the end of the day and felt that it was a good stopping point, along with the fact I didn’t have any fabric for the border or binding. About a week later I had both the fabric and the time, much to my delight. This was two days ago. This is what I call a big mini quilt or wall hanging. I’m not sure if there’s an official term. The border pieces were all cut to 28 inches. There was a momentary freak out when I laid the quilt top on my batting which was just an inch shy of the right size. ARG! Ganesh suggested I sew the batting together. My first thought, just being honest, was “no way,” but I looked it up. Lo and behold, it can be done. I didn’t do it probably as gracefully as I could have, but the recommendation I found was a multi-stitch zigzag stitch and to just butt up the batting along the side that needs extra. It took a lot of going back and restitching. I figured the quilting will help reinforce everything, right? Not perfect, but close.

Okay, then I didn’t have enough backing fabric. “Oy vey! When does it end,” you must be thinking. Well, I used my stray bed sheet fabric and trust that the back of my quilt is not so pretty. Not perfect. I found a tutorial on how to make binding. I did not finish the binding in the same way as she did in the video, though. The last section of binding I sewed on is an easier way that produces less anxiety for me. I do think her way is better, but I know my way is easier. Not perfect. One day I will show you my silly, easy way to finish up binding. But now I have a finished quilt to put on our wall and make the apartment that much more cozy and colorful.

Update

There has been some progress on two of the mini quilts from the collection I started showing you in last week’s blog.

 

Thank you for taking the time to read about my adventures in making a pattern, not being perfect (and being okay with that), and blogging. Please contact me if you have any questions or thoughts. Constructive criticism and suggestions are always welcome. Stay tuned for next week where I’ll be working on a new, exciting pattern. Have a wonderful day and try to take a few minutes to be creative if you can.