Scrumptious Scraps Quilt-Along - Twin Sisters!

Hi, all!

Welcome to the second week of the Scrumptious Scraps Quilt-Along!   This week, I'm getting by with a little help from my friends - one of my favorite people, Sharon of Vrooman's Quilts, is going to share one of her scrappy quilt tutorials with us!  Sharon is a fabulous scrap quilter - I know this, because she sends our quilt ministry lots of blocks and they are beautiful and so scrappy, they make my heart sing!  And she has the coolest address ever - she lives on Quilt Lane!  I hope you love her tutorial as much as I do, so here it is...

PS Be sure to read through to the end of the post for the winner of last week's giveaway...

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Hi! I'm Sharon, and I blog over at Vrooman's Quilts!  I'm going to share a very easy quilt pattern that originated from my TV days with Eleanor Burns - TWIN SISTERS.  (this tutorial is also listed on my tute page - just another quilt)

Since I am a scrap quilter I don't want to ever use up my scraps, but I do need to tame them from time to time.  Even after using a lot of blues in the past few quilt-a-longs, I seem to still have an overflow  as well as my 'neutrals' are a bit out of hand.

I make this using 2.5" strips (jelly roll friendly) and you need at least a 19" length.  I use 20" to give myself wiggle room.  Some of my scraps were shorter, but I used two 10" lengths that work just as well.  One light and one dark - you can mix up your fabrics to use up those scraps.  Sew strips together and press toward the dark.

Sub-cut your strip sets into 4.5" units.  As you can see, you could even make four strip sets if your scraps are shorter. 

Cut each 4.5" unit from corner to corner using the same direction for all.  Lefties might feel more comfortable cutting from bottom left to top right corners.  The block pattern will work either way, but be sure you cut the units all the same.

Now pair up your units with the larger light section into one grouping and your larger dark section into another grouping like in the photo.  You are creating mirror images.

Stitch two triangles together - starting at the long edge and sew down to point.  Repeat  and press to the section that has no seam.  No  match up your two triangle units, pin center seams (they will nest) and point to hold and sew your center seam.  Press center seam open.  Square up - unfinished size is 5.5" and you can see I had very little to trim off.

This is the pile of scraps that I had left once completing the number of blocks I wanted for this quilt.

  I know Sarah has been trying to break her habit of tossing those left overs in a bin again - instead, trimming them up into workable units for a quick start on a new project.  This is a habit I have used since I started quilting.  All left overs go into my fabric system from various size squares that I use frequently and strips/strings.  Now doesn't that neat order look more appealing to use than that jumbled pile?

You can put your blocks together as is and the way they are pressed makes matching seams easy, but I like to sash.  I used 1.5" x 5.5" sashings with 1.5" corner stones, but you can play with this to make your own quilt.

You can play with your block layout, but I just placed the mirror sets one after the other as they look so different anyways.

I used the white for an inner border at 2.5" (again optional) and a 6.5" outer border for the finish look.

The backing  (and outer border) was left overs from an extra wide used for another quilt  I had to piece the back in 5 different sections, but you can't tell.  Hey, it's about using it up!

I quilted it with a curve from point to point and thru the corner stones for curved cross-hatch which looks like a loppy apple core on the back.  You can quilt as desire or even tie.

I used some of those dark blue scraps for the binding, too - just an added interest.

Another look at the finished quilt.  It took me a day to cut and make the blocks, a day to sash and assemble the flimsy, and a day to quilt and add the binding (all completed by machine). 

Thank you Sarah for inviting me and I hope you enjoyed the tutorial.

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Oh, how I love this quilt!  Sharon, thank you for sharing this wonderful scrap buster pattern with us - I have a whole tub of red scraps that has been screaming "use me, use me" and this may be the answer!

And now for the winner of last week's scrap giveaway.....

BethJanuary 28, 2018 at 11:43 PM

Other people's scraps are always more fun than my own--why is that? I've been plowing through my scraps, making kennel quilts, and I'll be happy to get an infusion of newness. (Any Christmas in there?)

I love the way you broke up those Jelly Roll Race quilts! That would be very fun for our Ronald McDonald Quilts. I'm going to add this to my list. Great idea for "leaders and enders", to sit a bag by my machine and work on the quilt even as I make progress on other projects also.

Congratulations, Beth!  I'll be contacting you to get your snail mail address and ship off that box of scraps ASAP!

Anyone interested in a box this week?  If you are, mention it in your comment below (be sure to leave some love for Sharon, too!) and leave me your email address, too!

Hugs!

Sarah