One Quilter’s Scraps…

I had another trip to visit my quilting Iowa family last weekend. Having finished all of my deadline quilts, I had to actually make a decision about what I wanted to work on. I ended on a quilt that’s has been in progress for about 5 years…

Back then, I had just finished the first quilt I had ever contributed to. It was a Halloween quilt, made from the scraps of my aunt’s Halloween quilts. I was obsessed with it (still am, if I’m being honest), and it’s so sad when it has to get packed away at the end of the season. We knew even then, it wouldn’t be sad if every time we packed away the Halloween quilt, the Christmas quilt could come out. So, my aunt got out her Christmas scraps, we got started, and then years passed and other deadlines took precedence. I thought this was the time to get back on the Christmas quilt.

These scrappy quilts are pretty easy: you sort the scraps by color (in the instance of the Christmas quilt, white, green, green and red (or the wilder prints), red, and black). Once they’re sorted, cut what you have into strips, at least 2″, but it does not have to be exact. These strips get seamed together in long strips, keeping the same color order. Then the strips are cut into squares, then with the right sides together (and the color order oriented the same way in both squares), sew two seams a quarter of an inch outside of the center diagonal, corner to corner. When you cut that diagonal, you have two new “half square triangle” scrappy squares.

I don’t have pictures for this part, cause this was all completed five years ago! I was way further along that I thought.

All that was left was to press, seam the squares together, and put on a border.

I say “all” like it didn’t take me all day Saturday, with help (thanks Aunt Kathy!)

But here’s the finished top! Now I just need to figure out how to piece a back and it’s off to the quilters.

Mom finished this top this weekend, too:

And Erin started on her own scrap quilt (I didn’t grab a picture, so here’s the Pinterest link):

Have you ever made a quilt from scraps? Or plan to? I’d love to hear about it, leave me a picture in the comments!