I May Have A Scrap Problem... A Great Tip!!

Hi, all!

Welcome back for another installment of I May Have A Scrap Problem!  How are you progressing in taming that scrap monster? Whether you've brought it completely under control or are just beginning, I hope you'll join me as I try to tame mine!  

This week I've got something special to share.  Lisa C. left a comment on last week's post that got me started thinking, and we corresponded about it some more.  After that, I couldn't wait to get started and implement the idea!  

Lisa said that she takes orphan blocks and uses various methods to unite them into quilt tops.  One method she uses is to add strips of fabrics to the sides to make them all the same size. So I headed off to church to dig through the orphan block boxes...

I pulled out twenty-five blocks, roughly the same size, and put them up on the design wall to be sure they "played well" together.  This is what I ended up with, although I pulled out several prior to this point that didn't work well with the others.

I measured the largest of the blocks and it was about 8" square.  I decided to build the blocks up to 12.5" so there would be a good-sized border around each.  Having a 12.5" template handy was useful - I could check the block as I sewed to see easily when it was large enough.

Most of these blocks were muted colors, so I pulled a variety of strings from the strings box that were also muted shades.  Then I just grabbed a block, a string, and started sewing them on!  

I didn't worry too much about keeping the orphan block exactly centered, although I did try to build up the sides fairly evenly.  I ended up ripping out some stitches and re-setting one block because it ended up too far in the corner one time, and really looked odd.

Here you can see the first four blocks I added to.  Really simple - about the only thing I did special was to try to incorporate many of the same fabrics throughout the whole quilt.  It gave it a sense of cohesiveness without being matchy-matchy.

Here's a picture of the flimsy - it was a little windy this day, so I had to take it from the underside, but isn't it pretty?  All those little pieces glowing like coals with the sunshine coming through them...

And I found this great piece of hand-spun, hand woven cotton in the stash for the back!  I think it came from Thailand - it was in my mother-in law's stash and it was just too pretty to pass up, but it's sat in my stash for over a year now.  It was just the right size to piece this back!

And here's a picture of the finished quilt - twenty-five orphan blocks that had been languishing in a box, now part of a quilt that I'm calling Beautiful Family - orphans no more!

Look at all that pretty texture!!  It's quilted in a simple random meander, which washed up lovely, soft and crinkly...

This quilt was so much fun to make!  Taking all those orphan blocks and turning them into something really special just made my day.  And I wanted to do a little something special to say thanks to Lisa C. for the great tip...  When I saw an ad for a new quilting t-shirt that used the phrase "quilt whisperer" I had an idea!

I made this "Scrap Whisperer" pincushion today, and I'll be sending it out to Lisa C. as a thank you for the great tip!  (And yes, it's made with scraps - both fabric and even a scrap of printable fabric!) So keep leaving those fabulous tips - you never know when you might become a "scrap whisperer" yourself!

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Are you feeling inspired now?  Keep working those scraps and coming up with great ideas - I hope you'll plan on sharing your progress in two weeks so we can all celebrate and learn from what you've been doing!

Hugs!

Sarah