We all have scraps and unused blocks from previous projects. If your New Year’s resolution is to use those, gather scraps, orphan blocks and “too small” pieces of
fabric and make an intricate looking quilt. Here are some tips and examples to help get you started.

Iron Scraps

Before getting started iron all your scraps and orphans to keep them neat and wrinkle free. This will help you save time and make it easier to pick through pieces of fabric when designing your pattern.

Order by Color

If you have a large amount of leftover scraps, a great way to organize them is by color. This will make it more efficient for you when getting started. Once organized you can make a rainbow pattern by combining similar shades of the same color together. By pairing scraps of fabric that are the same color will give the quilt a consistent pattern as shown in the images below.

Use your Selvages

If you’re trying to be really frugal, or simply like the look, you can use selvages to create your quilt blocks. The key to sewing is to use a foundation fabric. Cut your quilt piece from muslin, then applique, zigzag or stitch your selvages to the foundation with each overlapping the previous selvage. Position each so the woven edge of the next piece covers the raw edge of the previous piece. This technique can also be used with your narrow leftover strips, but you’ll want to stitch the fabrics to the foundation right sides together then press open and add the next strip, thereby covering all raw edges. (If you’re confused, look up instructions for paper-piecing in the Reference Library in the app.)

Here’s a nice design suggestion: use of a solid or small-scaled fabric for the background with these pieced blocks will make your pieced blocks pop out.

Stripped Lines

If you have much longer pieces of scrap fabric, you can quickly piece them into a larger piece to make a baby quilt, a colorful table runner, or the base fabric for a tote bag.

Now it’s your turn to start getting creative with your scraps of fabric to see what you can design. Make sure to share with us your finished project by posting an image of your quilt to our app.

Happy Quilting.