I used to not like scrappy quilts, but now I love them!
Maybe it’s because I have a lot more scraps??!!
Also I think there’s a right and wrong way to make a scrappy quilt….
#1 make the scraps small
the smaller the scraps, the better, even ugly pieces of fabric, can look good in a scrap quilt if the piece is cut small enough!
For scrap quilts, my GO TO QUBE set is the 6″ QUBE! or even smaller…. but the 6″ qube can make 1 1/2″ fin. squares or HSTs, with the 4″ the small squares are 1″ Fin… that’s tiny and kind of fiddly! but still fun!
#2 is fabric choices
When you pick your scraps, stick with the same shade to get the best result or be daring and see what happens!
Blues come in a lot of different shades, so does grey or green, so decide if you want a light blue or a teal or turquoise or medium blue or dark blue etc.
#3 Variety
If you need to cut 48 HSTs or something, it’s better to cut 6 of 8 different fabrics or 4 of 12 different or 2 of 24! instead of maybe just using a few fabrics, the more the merrier! again this is where I love my QUBE dies, because I can lay a tiny scrap on top of a HST die that cuts out two pieces and I can layer 8 fabrics, so that makes 16 HSTs in one pass of the machine!
Now it’s OK to have ONE constant fabric in the quilt, that will tie it all together I think 🙂
Here’s some samples of scrappy quilts I’ve made where it WORKED!
Here I used the same white small squares into the sister’s choice blocks and also the same blue fruit fabric as the center square on the other blocks, it’s subtle but works 🙂
Here the whole thing is scrappy, the only thing I planned was to make the right side up on some of the fabrics!
This one is totally scrappy too and looks great! I didn’t have a hard and fast rule for the dark and light blue and I think that made it more fun!
This one was a bit of a gamble because I had a ton of HSTs and used my Sacrifice pattern to make the blocks and the only rule I had was light and dark, but that’s relative! so that makes it an interesting quilt.
Here’s what DIDN’T work…..
First of all the colors are all wrong with the grey and pink, but my scrappy rule I only followed for each “shape” so if it was a large HST I cut all of them with one fabric, or a QST or a square, then other times I didn’t have enough of one fabric and I did it more scrappy, so the overall look is just odd! Oh well, lesson learned!!
At least with scrappy quilts, they are sort of FREE because you’re using leftover fabrics from other projects!! so not a big loss there 🙂
If you want to find more of my scrappy patterns, go here