Scrap Attack is a festival of scrappiness hosted by Rachel of Stitched in Color. There’s also a lovely associated Flickr group getting geared up. Join in by making a quilt mostly from scraps by the end of March to win some goodies that she’s amassing. Get the details over on her blog.
Long ago I wrote a Manifesto about using ALL scraps of fabric, where we should be clear in understanding that scraps in my studio are often much smaller than what might pass for scraps for others. In short, I don’t like to let any square inch go to waste. However, the techniques of Scraptacularity, Part I and what I’ll show below can be used with fabrics of all shapes and sizes (well, that are larger than 0.5″ in all directions).
All the caveats of Scraptacularity, Part I apply. In particular, we should relax and expect the unexpected. This is improvisational and leaves little room for control.
The Pitfalls of Bias Cuts: A friend of mine sent me a pile of scraps and I decided to handsew them into giant improv blocks. It was satisfying to do and went well for a while.
That is until I met pieces cut off the grain.
See this edge ripple? Yeah. If you look closely, you can see the threads of the weave swoop up and to the left. I didn’t trim that piece back onto the grain (i.e., squared up, with warp and weft parallel to the edges of the fabric) and it came back to bite me. This would never lay flat and would pucker if I built the patchwork out further from there.
A Solution: We are going to make crazy quilt blocks, foundation pieced on paper. The paper will stabilize those stretchy edges for us. We’ll make 5″ squares that you then can use as you would any charm pack.
1. Cut 5″ squares of paper. I use phone book pages.
2. Choose a nice small wacky scrap. And find any other scrap to start the party.
3. Place second scrap face down on the first, pin through all three layers, and sew a quarter-inch seam with just a slightly smaller stitch-length than you’d normally use.
4. Open flat and finger-press the seam. You could also use a dry (non-steam) iron if you like.
5. Continue the process. Notice that sometimes you’ll need to trim the seam to a quarter-inch. Just eyeball it and use your scissors.
6. Keep on going. (View biggie sized.)
7. Once you have covered the entire paper square, give it a good quick press to crisp the seams.
8. Flip and trim down to a 5″ square using the paper as a guide.
9. Don’t remove the paper until you’ve finished the next step of using the block to make something else. The paper stabilizes the edges and prevents bias distortion.
And hold onto those trimmings; they’ll be great scraps to use in other blocks. Now…just keep making more blocks!
I love how different and how wacky they can get.
Next time we’ll talk about some time-savers (ETA: that’s here!) and then I’ll show you a quilt or two I made with this sort of process.
excellent! i use phone book pages, too, but i do hate ripping off any paper…. the lazy factor, I suppose.
It’s scraptacular! Super.
I planned out my next quilt yesterday. It starts with building base blocks like this too. I’ll strive for a more directional look of the strings for what I have in mind though.
I’ve been using up scraps this week but I love your technique, something else to try. Thank you :)
Love this. I am so accustomed to cutting my scraps into strips or squares, but this is such a nice option!
I love this so much! It looks a lot quicker than having to sew strips for a log cabin too. Yes, I think I will give this a bash! fun fun fun! Thanks for sharing :)
brilliant!
Ooooh, love this C! Great idea on using phone book paper, I’ll definitely be saving mine next time they come around with a new one! :)
Great idea, I love that you kept them 5″ square so they can be used in the place of a charm square. I also like to piece my crazy blocks on muslin so I don’t have to tear off the paper.
I too hate tearing off the paper. i’ve been tempted a time or two just to leave it on there. i might have heard that they used to do it back in the olden days. or i’m probably just making that up to make myself feel better.
Really lovely! Those blocks have lots of character and I can see how the technique makes nice, non-stretchy use bias scraps. Thanks for the tutorial, C! I’ve used phonebook paper for foundation piecing too. Works great!
Awesome method C! It’s similar to the one I’m using for my Maple Leaf Rag, but this is even more useful and I love using the foundation paper. Hooray for scraps!
Fantastic tut and tip :) I may have to make a scrappy quilt too. :)
These look great– I love improvisational piecing, but sometimes it is hard to do with such small scraps– now I’m dying to try your method! Thanks so much for sharing!
this is cool. i’m going to show this to my daughter and see if she wants to give it a go with some of our scraps. thanks!
Great use for old phone books… and for that bulging drawer of “very small” scraps I can’t bear to discard.
Very, very cool.
And what a good idea to use phone book paper! I now know what to use those books for! ;)
oh wow! i think i could actually DO this! lol!
I love your method. I’ve used phone book paper for piecing before, but the idea of using every teeny tiny bit in a non-applique form is freeing! I’m definitely going to try it.
oh i love this so much. will need to try this technique!
Love the phone book idea!
I think I love you. The idea, the phone book pages, the everything. Thanks for the inspiration!
Also, it would be SUPER FUN to do a swap of these blocks :)
I love this method to use scraps. Thanks for sharing it!!!
This is such a great method! This post is the last push I needed to join in Rachel’s scrap attack quilt along – now I can’t resist. Thanks so much – all my scraps are tiny weird bias-cut things that I previously didn’t know how to use. :)
That is so cool.
Thanks for sharing the brilliant idea!! I will give a try…:}
Great idea for using up scraps…thanks for the tutorial!!!
So beautiful and so much personality. Love the method and the madness!
I’ve only done paper piecing once. This looks like a very good way to use up scraps.
oh my gosh…i love sewing with “scraps” too…but you absolutely kill it!
i also completely appreciate the rest of your work that was in that video…finally someone i can completely connect with in the land of quilting/sewing/crocheting!!!
I love this. I thought my phone book pages were only good for starting a fire in the fireplace. But now I can start a fire and work on a quilt, sounds like a good plan for Saturday afternoon.
Thanks for sharing this tutorial!
I find this fascinating. However, I don’t think I have a firm enough grasp on sewing techniques to understand how the paper stabilizes the ripple effect? You have actually sewn the square onto the paper which later, you’ll rip off? Like ‘traditional’ paper piecing (I quote traditional cuz I don’t know what is traditional…I’ve done 2 paper piecing projects before, both using paper)? If that is the case, when are you sewing the paper square on?
One of my goals this year is to trim down my scrap pile (mountain). I think I have more scraps than yardage. Thanks for the great tutorials. Neat ideas using phone book paper!
Great tutorial….this method works really well if you use batting instead of paper for the foundation, for all of you that hate removing the paper. Of course then you’ve got a Quilt As You Go project going, which is another story, but also a great way to use scraps.
‘Sell’s Septic Service’ – Happy accident? Should have used that particular piece of phonebook for one of your fabulous ‘sh*t’ blocks!! lol