15 November, 2016

Making the most of scraps, left overs, crumbs ...

The Blues
 Rainbow Quilters, Rotorua, were given 5 rubbish bags full of fabric scraps.  We meet every 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the month.  Here's a link to our facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/181844985351307/

After sorting them by colour, I brought home the browns and blues. I challenged myself to work in colours I don't normally "do".
The Browns
On sorting through the fabrics, they are all CATS!  There must be more than 100 different cat fabrics here.  I noticed a lot of the fabric was cut into 8inch squares, so I created this quilt with half square triangles.
180 triangles of scrap
 I still had lots of left overs, and noticed most of them were 8x 5 inch rectangles, so I created this "reflections" quilt.  The pale fabric has butterflies.
 I still had a pile of fabric, so I cut that into 2 1/2 inch strips, joining the fabric with "like" colour.
A wall of strips
 A new technique I discovered.  Tube Strip Piecing.  Join 6 strips together into a tube, and cut 90 degree triangles from the strips, rotating the top and bottom of the triangle.  Unpick the short bit, and voila, SQUARES!
Tube Strip Quilt
 I now had a pile of scraps.  I cut 50 x  1 1/2 inch orange squares for continuation of colour, and just sewed small bits of fabric to small bits of fabric.  The pieces grew, and I just kept adding bits of fabric.  Every now and then I would stop sewing, and put the "blocks" on the wall in about the same size columns.  In some cases, I added more scraps to some of the blocks, and put more blue in, as it was quite brown.
The orange squares add a spot of colour
 A dark blue and orange border.  Another quilt top finished, from leftovers.
Leftovers Quilt
These are the fabric crumbs that are left.  I took them to club night at quilting, and the other members found a use for the crumbs.

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