Scrap Quilt #6

Time to show you another of the scrap quilts!  This is one that wasn't in the plans either.  As I was nearing the end of cutting up all the scraps, I seemed to have a nice sized pile of little strips that hadn't been cut into anything else. 

So of course I made a log cabin quilt, as one does!  I used my favorite shade of vintagey green/blue for the center blocks.  In such a wildly scrappy quilt, it can be nice to have this little touch of connection between the blocks.

I ended up loving the blocks in this quilt so much, that it's almost a favorite!  I guess there are a lot of little bits of my most loved fabrics in this quilt.  And it always amazing to see all these different fabrics sitting next to each other in a block.  I keep seeing a different block that is my new favorite!

I decided to quilt this one in the ditch between the blocks and then tied with yarn in the center of each block.  I love the feel and texture this gives the quilt.  It makes it a bit puffier and so soft and squishy.

And the Liberty of London backing sure doesn't hurt it!  I bought a big chunk of this fabric when it was on sale at Fabric.com and I wish I had bought more because it's one of those pieces that I could back almost every quilt with.  I love a two-color backing like this, and the shade and print on this one are the very best!  (the print is called Capel by Liberty and it comes in a bunch of colors)

Dimensions on this one are 45"x60" so it's perfect for a lap quilt or child/toddler.

Scrap Quilt #5

So my last quilt (the pinwheel one) used up all the 'dirty' or 'muddy' colors.  This one is all the 'clean colors.  So the squares all started at 5", and I had to go to my fabric stash to supplement a few of the white background squares.  I basically went from dark to light values on this one.

The backing is a vintage sheet which I've been saving for a long time.  It's so cheery and it just seemed perfect for this quilt.  Because it's a heavier weight cotton, it gives this quilt more a picnic blanket feel.

Dimensions:62"x65"  (just realized when I measured this that I sewed on one more row the long way, can't remember if this was intentional!  Oh well, it's rectangular now:)

Scrap Quilt #4

I feel like this is a lot of photos of quilt #4, but there were just so many individual blocks and fabric combos that I love, I wanted to show them all close up!

So as I was cutting up all my scraps, I found that I had a lot of 5" squares or larger chunks that worked well for these squares.  So I made a large stack of them.  I wasn't sure how to put them all together in one quilt, as they seemed quite varied in their style. 

Now, my previous quilt showed that you can totally put all fabrics together in a scrappy quilt, and with the right pattern it will look great.  BUT, there are times when I like to separate what I call 'dirty' and 'clean' colors.  Does someone have a better visual name for me?  "Dirty" is not a bad name here, maybe "muddy" would be a better description.  Anyways, I separated all those scrappy 5" squares into 2 stacks going by these criteria. 

The quilt you see here is the result of the 'dirty' stack.  When I decided to make pinwheel blocks, this cream and black polka dot jumped out as a fun sashing.  And then you can never go wrong with this shade of green that I used for the little center blocks.

The pinwheels are all smooshed up against the edge without a border.  This is directly inspired by a vintage quilt that I own, made by my great grandmother.  (Someday I plan to show you all the quilts around my house that are made by my family!)

The backing is a super fun print in that shade of warm minty green.  It's full of vintage sewing patterns and measurements, I just love it!

Scrap Quilt #3

This quilt was made up of all the leftover 2.5"x3.5" rectangles.  There was obviously no color plans here at all.  I included every piece that was left.  I did alternate light and dark values (although only relative to the color next to it).  And I would use up all of one fabric before moving on to the next.  I like how this gives it a bit of presence without being totally chaotic.

Of course, to mix it all up completely would have looked ok too.  That would have been a completely different look.  But I do like how keeping all of one kind of fabric together gives it a bit of stripey flow. 

This quilt is one of those that so totally doesn't work, that it does!  I really like the unusual color combos that I keep noticing as I look at it.  A lot of these are fabrics that I would not naturally pair together, so it's fun to see them hanging out together here.

The backing is a sweet floral print, and the size is 51"x58"

Scrap Quilt #2

I'm planning to show you these scrap quilts in the order that I made the tops.  So as I was cutting out scraps, I realized that my blacks/darks and also my whites/lights baskets, had some larger chunks in them.  I couldn't bear to cut them up into the smaller pieces so I decided to cut a bunch of 5" squares and see how many I would get. 

And I got enough to make this lap sized quilt!   I kind of love this design, using only half square triangles and then some squares in the corners to give it that star design.  (original inspiration from @ruthhasegutierrez on Instagram.  She's a quilter who dyes all her own fabric and makes amazing quilts)

Without planning this way, a lot of these scraps had bits of pink and yellow in them, so I purposely added a couple yellow squares, and then this pink piece of double gauze was so perfect for the back!

I quilted it in simple straight lines, which is my go-to type of quilting if I don't have some other idea. 

After washing, this one ends up at 49"x 56", so again a nice smaller throw quilt.

And as usual, this quilt as well as all these scrap quilts, will be available in my shop.

Scrap Quilt #1

So excited to start showing you my finished scrap quilts for 2020!  For a bit more background, read this post here.  Basically I decided to clean out every. last. scrap. and see how many quilts it would make.  Turns out it made 8!  And these are all small to large lap sized quilts...

So this first one was made from the large stacks of 2.5"x3.5" rectangles.  I found this to be a good size to cut from my scraps.  Because I tend to have lots of partial bits of 2.5" strips leftover from other things I guess. 

As I mention in my scribbles/halfway tutorial above (sorry guys, i'm so bad at taking the time to write a proper tutorial, I'd rather sew!)  anyways, as I mention, I divided the rectangles roughly into stacks of light, medium, and dark.  The mediums pile was by far the largest, with the lights coming in second and the darks having the fewest. 

I then started sewing vertical rows, doing 10 light rectangles, then 15 medium rectangles, then 10 dark rectangles.  This is so very flexible, as far as the size you want your finished quilt to be, and also depending if your scraps tend more to light, dark, or medium.

As you can see, partway through the quilt, the color values dip down with less dark and more light.  I wanted to add this interest and this quilt was really giving me the vibes of a sunset sky and the darks seemed like the hills on the horizon.  I didn't want it to have a completely straight line so I switched to 14 light, 15 medium, and 6 dark (oops, mistake in my written instructions above... the total number has to add up to 35.  or however many rectangles you are using)

Then towards the end of the quilt rows I went up to my original numbers of 10 light, 15 medium, and 10 dark.

I added in some geese, which I outline the basic size you'll need in the instructions above.  As you can see, the quilt was really feeling like a sunset sky to me.  I'm amazed how the quilt glows with color, and I did NO color selection whatsoever.  It's just a complete random selection of all my scraps. 

And I do love the back, as the black and white seem like a perfect foil to the vibrancy of the front.  After washing, the quilt came out at 55"x 69", so a perfect throw size quilt.