I have just finished a day in Lübeck, north of Hamburg where we saw some very cool stained glass windows too. Very scrappy looking too with the tiny pieces.
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Probably one of the Star quilts. I haven’t done many star blocks, but I like them (especially in non-traditional fabrics, like batiks).
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Both are gorgeous, I would have trouble choosing.
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This is my stash! Precut scraps and bigger pieces of fabric. I dont usually buy fabric for the stash, only for a specific project. Believe it or not but all of this fits into one cube of my Expedit.
I pulled out all my dinosaur fabric scraps today and designed two simple baby quilts. One for a baby expected in October, the other for the next baby. No one is expecting but we’re at that age where sooner or later someone will announce another pregnancy. I think those two will use up most of my dinosaur fabric.
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So, this is not all of my stash, obviously, lol, but these are the piles currently staring at me, impatiently waiting to become pillow covers for my daughters…
I want to make 2 “R” pannels…one pink and one blue, based on this tutorial. I laid out the “R” patterns, but just haven’t gotten much further! 
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I almost bought this book used, but then the shipping costs turned out to be too high. But it’s still on my list, especially now I’ve seen those starry quilts!
I own Quilts for scrap lovers by Judy Gauthier. I bought this book because it specifically promises to help you figure out a purpose for fabrics that are dated, or scraps of sewing fabric that aren’t really interesting, and they work only with squares. I like the patterns in the book, but I don’t really have squares that big. Of course I could adapt the patterns to smaller squares, and maybe I will, but then I’d have to math. She works with 3,5", 4,5" and 5,5" squares and uses the biggest squares the most. I have some bigger squares, but not that many. The quilts in the book also use a wide variety of scraps in all colours of the rainbow, which looks really nice, but the scraps I want to get rid of are not that nice - maybe 20 or 30 big, uninteresting dark blue squares etc. I’m good at the truly scrappy look (=completely random) but this thought-through approach is difficult for me. I will only learn by doing so I just need to get started, I suppose.
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Do you know of Karen Brown’s Just Get It Done Quilts channel? She is truely marvelous. Edel introduced me to her which is quite funny because she’s in my town! One day I’ll meet her, I hope.
Here’s a video on using up ugly fabric and another with 7 ideas for scrap-busting
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I know her but I didn’t know she had videos about scraps! Will watch them when I get home.
A lot of the scraps I have aren’t really ugly when you see the whole piece of fabric, but the cut up scraps become ugly because the print isn’t suitable. The ones I struggle most with are backing scraps leftover from quilts for kids. I tend to go for fabrics with big, fun prints - the dark blue one has jungle animals. But the scraps don’t really look like anything and the blue background isn’t an interesting colour.
That star book does look like it has a lot of fun patterns!
@marionberries, your quilt is looking really good! I like the neutral vine batik that you used for the sashing. I’m sure your sister will love and appreciate it, especially since it contains fabrics from your mom’s stash.
Everyone has stashes full of great stuff! It looks like there are some amazing projects just waiting to be made!
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I’ve got about 50 of these 5" squares. Some are fun, some are meh, some are animal butts and beheaded animals.
And I’ve found this pattern
Now I just need to find a contrasting fabric and if the end result isn’t great, it can be a functional quilt. With the current gas prices no one will be able to afford to turn the heating on this winter.
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I snorted out loud at “butts and beheaded animals” and then sor of sad-chuckled in commiseration of the gas vs heat comment. Whip up that quilt, Lady, winter is coming!
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Monkey-face is adorable!
And I’m feeling that need for extra layers prediction. Time to think about snuggly crafts.
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I am also thinking of functional quilts for those in need…I am sure the fabric is not going to be as important as the warmth.
I really liked that ugly fabric video…I am going to pull our about 20 of them this weekend and try that quilt. It also looks fast and gives me an excuse to get new fabric…
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It’s very sad, heating bills are fast becoming unaffordable not just for those on a lower income but for the middle incomes as well. We’re lucky, we’re only two people in a small house, we don’t have appliances that use a ton of electricity and we put in some extra insulation a few years back. But our monthly payment still went up from €75 to €185 and our supplier has already announced another price hike in October. Many renters are not as lucky as we are, this is such a hot rental market that many landlords barely do any maintenance. It’s not unusual now for people to pay €500 a month in electricity/heating for a regular family home. I really hope we’ll get a mild winter.
The fabric was really cute before I cut it up, lots of cute animals, it was the backing for a quilt for a little boy and these are the strips I cut off the sides after quilting and before binding.
I’ve got the morning off so I’m cutting fabric for two more baby quilts (dinosaur fabric!!) and some scrap projects, and hopefully I’ll find the time to piece some of them, too.
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I hope the winter is mild for you, too, @Immaculata. How scary to have to worry about all this.
I’ve been looking into wool batting for quilts to see if I can create something warmer than a standard cotton quilt. Has anyone ever used it? Most of what is available is heat-bonded (they mix a small bit of acrylic fiber in and use heat to sort of glue the fibers together). I’d prefer no man-made fibers, but would probably have to settle for something partially felted if I went that direction, don’t know how easy that would be to launder.
I’m back from my lovely trip, and happy to be sitting back in my craft studio surrounded by lovely fabric.
And what made my home coming even more special was this amazing, amazing collection of squares for the hypothetical grandbaby quilt from @MistressJennie (I am so impressed that with a small baby you had time to send me some squares, hugs to Ada)
And three, three! Envelopes from @AudiobookLover with these fabulous designs.
I’m going to make this quilt huge to include all these lovelies.
Thank you both so much xxxx
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And back to scraps, that book looks really good @Immaculata do you recommend the one that you own on scraps?
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I’ve never worked with a wool batting, but I’ve had to deal with the aftermath of someone else’s choice to do so. I had a coworker whose mom was a newbie quilter and decided to use an old wool blanket as the batting on a baby quilt for their son. She did ties instead of traditional quilting. The hapless parents threw the dirty quilt in the washer and drier, and it came out looking like a wadded up tissue that couldn’t be un-wadded. The quilt had been about 45" square, and the batting shrunk to about 18" square. They asked me to ‘fix’ it for them.
I cut the ties with a seam ripper, and eventually got the layers separated, though it took a very long time to do so. I had to be careful with each thread I cut, and it took a couple days. The biggest problem was that the ties damaged the front and backing so bad with the shrinkage that the backing had nearly 1/2" wide holes spaced across it, and the front had the same holes, all in the centers of the blocks. While I can replace the backing with another plain green fabric, I would have to take apart the blocks to replace the tiny 2" center squares entirely. I actually have the same fabric, because she used it as the binding too. But then what do I use to rebind it?
Obviously from the way I’m talking, I never finished the repair, and I do feel like a jerk about that. It’s been a couple years. It’s sitting on my table upstairs right now. (I did tell them at the time that it might not be able to be repaired.) So yeah, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t recommend using a wool batting, in case someone besides you decides to be helpful and throw it in the wash. Perhaps 2 layers of the thinner cotton batting?
I actually sent 2 envelopes, so if you only received one, then another shouldn’t be far behind.
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Well, I’ve only had it for a short time ( I bought it with the voucher that I got from you!!) so I’m only just cutting blocks for my first project from this book. I’m making the block slightly smaller so it works with what I’ve got in my stash.
Pro:
- she works with standard sized squares, which is how I handle my scraps (hers are 3,5", 4,5" and 5,5")
- there’s a chapter on how to make dated fabric look modern again and on colour and spacing, which i don’t have a natural talent for
- I like all the projects in the book
Con:
- most blocks require the biggest size of square (5,5"), while my scraps are often smaller.
- for many blocks, the squares are then cut into 4 triangles and I hate sewing triangles, there’s probably a more efficient way to sew all the blocks without having to constantly sew triangles
- some projects are more scrappy than others. Some can be made with tiny squares of true scraps, others require bigger squares and a lot of different, but matching fabrics. I’m sure a lot of you could pull twenty different red or teal or purple fabrics out of your stash but I’m trying to keep my stash as small as possible.
It’s a great book for those with a massive stash, rather than someone looking to get rid of literal scraps. But books like these are great for inspiration and for many patterns it’s fairly easy to adapt the pattern to a different size of fabric square if you do some math.
What a disaster @MistressJennie . Such a shame that a precious gift ended up like that. I’ve never used wool as batting and generally don’t use wool in any projects for anyone else for this exact reason, with the exception of wool socks for my mum, who knows how to wash it. But “hidden” in a quilt is a big risk. If it’s for your own personal use I’d probably take the risk and try it.
I have an oldfashioned wool blanket on my bed and I wash it every year. My machine has a handwash cycle (even more gentle than “delicate”) I use special laundry soap for wool, no spinning. The blanket comes out soaking wet and it takes a long time to dry. I wash it on a sunny day and dry it outside on the laundry rack and turn it every few hours). A quilt will take longer to dry, but it will probably also be really nice and warm.
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The commercially prepared wool batting is superwash wool and is washable/dryable. But, good to know about untreated wool (though, if I went with that option, I would felt it before using). It would be used in a quilt I would keep for myself, anyway, so I’m not too worried about not laundering it correctly. I was just wondering what experiences people had, if any, with the commercial wool batting.
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