Scrappy Quilts

The Fun is in the Adventure

Choosing fabric for scrappy quilts is like going on a treasure hunt. You never know what you'll find or where you'll find it.

Scrap quilts are just like that. Follow along with this method of choosing fabrics for a controlled scrap quilt. Your choices just might surprise and please you.

What is a Controlled Scrap Quilt?

Not every fabric in your stash or from your recent quilt store excursions will make it into this type of scrappy quilt. The goal is to have a quilt top with a unified color scheme. To do that, we...

Choose a Focus Object

It can be a fabric, a string of beads, an interesting picture...something with colors that please you. The subject of the object is irrelevant.

This is my chosen focus fabric.

Now, I'm not a fish-lovin’ girl in general, but this fabric caught my eye. Always be on the lookout for “things” that are pleasing to YOUR eyes. Understanding color theory is wonderful, but trust your instincts. They will serve you well.

The Hunt Begins

To join in the hunt, there is but one guideline...

...each fabric in the quilt must be friends with the focus object...

What does that mean? The "candidate" fabric:

• Does not have to be an exact match in color to the focus object
• Does not have to be an exact match in brightness to the focus object
• May be an “ugly” fabric
• May be any pattern...stripe, plaid, batik, reproduction, floral, etc.

When you lay these "candidate" fabrics next to the focus object, they play together nicely. They do not fight. An absolute match is unnecessary, and actually, rather boring. Be adventurous!

Learn to trust your instincts.

Taking too long to decide if a fabric is playing nicely? Then, clearly it's not. Go on gut instinct here. No over thinking.

When you buy for projects like this, fat quarters and quarters are perfect...not too big, not too small.

Playtime

I tried to gather equal amounts of all the colors in the focus fabric so my scrappy quilt wouldn't have a particular ’color cast’ to it. As fabric combinations evolved for each block, the working rule was each color group could only appear once in each block, i.e. no two greens allowed in a single block.

Putting the Pieces Together

With these simple rules, the piecing moved along. Choosing the fabrics for each block meant simply choosing one fabric from each color pile. Different values (light, medium and dark) are used in each block.

This is a block from the finished quilt.

For the inner pieced border, it was purples and fuchsias all the way.

The rule for the outer border was that two fabrics of the same color couldn't be touching.

The rest was left to chance.

Interesting combinations happened in the blocks. Playing with scraps in a controlled manner will do that. In fact, it took another two quilt tops to finish exploring these intriguing combinations.

Yep, they were scrappy quilts, too!

Sewing It Up

To make a controlled scrappy quilt use the following guidelines:

• Choose a focus object of pleasing colors
• Choose fabrics for the project stash that are friends, but not clones, of the focus object
• No fighting with the focus object or fabric
• Use simple rules to choose fabrics for each block such as each color can only appear once
• If you want a certain ‘color cast’ to your quilt change the rule
• Enjoy the process; revel in the new combinations this method brings you

The Finished Scrappy Quilt

This is it.

“The Fish Quilt” in all its glory. The only place that the fish focus fabric appears on the quilt is the binding and in a strip on the back for remembrance.

Notice how the fabrics all play nicely together. Your eyes can't help but move around because there is just so much to take in.

The quilt has batiks, reproductions, cute little prints, regular quilter cottons, stripes, a plaid and polka dots, all playing happily together. No fancy quilting, just in-the-ditch.

The fabric is the star of this little scrappy quilt.

Now It's Your Turn!

Have you made a scrap quilt? Was is fun?

We'd love to see it! Please share your quilt pictures, your story and your helpful hints on using scraps in our Show and Tell.

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