I have the same problem. Last year I made something that didn't use up a lot of fabric, but was very pretty. I had a group of loosely-woven, metallic Christmas plaids from KQ that were stunning but probably wouldn't hold up in a quilt. I made padded stars to hang from ribbons from my fireplace mantel. Not hard to do and made a great "lap project" for evenings. I just found a star pattern I liked, enlarged it with a ruler and pencil, cut out of cardboard, put batting on both sides, laid fabric over, and stitched around the edges with a backstitch and embroidery floss. After a while, I started using fusible fleece instead of gluing the batting to the cardboard.
Hugs,
Charlotte