Hello there!
How is your week going? We are (still) basking in the most gorgeous sunny weather here, leaving us with stunning, glorious sunsets!
This week in my classes I am presenting my summer Saturday Workshops. The 4 Saturdays in August will all be workshops, and I will be posting about them here, starting with ……
If you’ve been sewing for any length of time, you may have a huge healthy stock of scraps, leftovers from previous quilting projects. These pieces might just be too sizeable, pretty or meaningful to throw away, leftover binding or jelly roll strips, or perhaps frugality gets the better of you!
Either way, there are many, many ways to put those ever growing scraps to good use!
Here are just a few examples of what you can make on Scrap Buster Saturday.
Stacked Coins Cushion: (pattern available here)
If you have a plentiful supply of scraps, you may be able to group them into colourways like I’ve done here.
Let your scraps dictate how wide your stacks can be! The only preparation here is some pressing and making sure the sides are straight.
Equally you can go completely random, and sew a variety of scraps together in the same ‘stacked coins’ way!
French Braid Handbag: (pattern available here)
This is another example of grouping scraps into colourways. The French Braid piecing technique is super easy, and you don’t even need the pieces to be of equal width.
I’ve quilted the bag exterior onto bosal (flex foam) which gives it lovely texture and structure without losing softness.
(Hinged Faux Leather Handles available at the workshop)
Strip Pieced Quilt: (free block tutorial here)
My technique for making strip pieced blocks doesn’t involve a foundation layer.
I added a little ‘organisation’ to lots of random strips by making the central strip in each block white. The white strips are of uniform width, but that’s were the uniformity ends! All other strips are random widths and lengths. I even used ‘ugly’ fabrics I still had, but I totally love the finished quilt! That’s the magic of using scraps.
Autumn Rail Fence Quilt (block tutorial available here)
The simple sewing together of strips means you can easily make up this quilt top in a day.
Once again, I dove into my scrap drawers for specific colours – golds, oranges, pinks and teals, all of different widths and lengths. Some donated yardage of a brown stripe gives flow and order to the scraps.
But equally, this quilt would look fabulous made in random coloured scraps with a uniform ‘fence’ fabric.
‘Quilt As You Go’ Handbag: (pattern available here)
Here’s another roomy handbag idea for all those colourful scraps!
This ‘quilt as you go’ method involves the quilting of each individual piece of fabric onto a larger piece of wadding. There are no raw edges, and the condense quilting gives the bag lots of structure.
The pattern also includes this secure recessed zipper closure.
‘Birch’ Quilt (in progress):
I took inspiration from this quilt and decided to make a grey and low volume version (given that I have an overflowing drawer of LV scraps!).
I plan on using up my stash of Kona Greys to make this into a bigger ‘man’ quilt. Somehow, I think it will take me a lot longer to use up my LV scraps!
So there you have it! A little inspiration on how to use your scraps, and a date for your diary on how to have a day of fun turning them into something wonderful!
And if you need even more inspiration, check out my Scrap Busting Pinterest Board!
All Saturday workshops are £30, including a non-refundable deposit of £15 to register. Just drop me an email to justjudedesigns@hotmail.co.uk to book a place.
Happy scrapping!
