Are You Scrappy?
 

The first quilt I made was a "controlled" scrappy (13 different fabrics). I like putting a lots of different fabrics together in a quilt.

I cut novelty fabrics and many other prints and read-solids into various sizes - from 2" to 6" squares, various sizes of rectangles and triangles
From them I make a variety of quilt patterns - D9P, rail fence, Chinese coins, Ocean Waves etc
2 different plaid quilts that have no names - both a 16" square blocks.

Quiltville has alot of scrap patterns
And, there is a site on this Board of only Scrap Quilts

I am not particuarly scrappy, more of a colour co-ordinated controlled scrappy, but it is a great way of using up bits and pieces that otherwise would go to waste.
There are some great ideas here
http://quiltville.blogspot.com.au/p/free-patterns.html I am doing one called pinapple blossom at the moment.

I only make scrappy quilts but with that being said I use solid white in every quilt I make so that adds the cohesive look. I never make the same pattern twice. Too many quilts, too little time. I have been quilting since April and have made 12 quilts. I don't use borders on my quilts either so I don't ever need yardage. Plus I only make twin size or smaller because that's the size I like. I don't prep my scraps until I decide what I'm making. I just pick a pattern - found online or in a magazine - and then paw through my scraps/stash until I get enough fabrics to make it work. I also do scrap swaps in order to get more variety.

I am new to scrappiness - I hoarded my scraps for years with no particular plan. I have recently started using a "system" in which I cut the bigger bits into 2.5" squares, and sets of rectangles 1.5" wide by 2.5" long and 4.5" long (two of each length). Then you border a square with a contrasting set of rectangles, and set aside in a pile. When you have enough square-in-a-squares you make something out of it. I can't do it totally randomly, just not my nature, so I recently made sets of placemats, with each mat showing a color gradient (eg the purple set had squares that went from dark purple borders to white borders, with the inner square being some other color). They ended up looking quite striking. I made six sets, and sold three right away at a craft fair! I still have tons of square-in-a-squares left (did I mention I have been hoarding scraps?), and feel confident that I will be able to use this basic shape to make many interesting things. The original idea for the square-in-a-square came from the book Loose Change.

Whatever bits are leftover from that process get made into string blocks, which I also color coordinate.

I am enjoying having a plan for my scraps, so that I prep as I go along and it doesn't become a horrendously overwhelming task.

Alison

I love scrap quilts. Mostly I do paper piecing but have done rail fence just using 5 strips 2.5 wide by 10.5 length. My favorite was paper pieced hearts done with bright pastels. I have done rocking sailboat baby quilts. I am mostly self taught and these were easy for me. Looking forward to be able to take some classes to learn the "correct" techniques. 101 Log Cabin Blocks by House of White birches has some very good patterns to copy and good color direction in the pictures.

I love scrappy quilts and I've made 4 of them. I like them and others do also as they usually fit in any bedroom. Most of mine are planned but now I have so many fabrics I'm using up fabric that I have.

I like string quilts made from strips. I also have made spiderweb quilts with my scrappy strips. I am now taking my little scraps and cutting them into 2 inch squares for a future quilt.

Bonnie Hunter's site Quiltville has already been mentioned. She has lots of scrappy patterns and an organizing system:
http://quiltville.com/scrapusersystem.shtml
I also like the Mary's quilt site Lots of patterns:
http://www.maryquilts.com/

I like my scrappy quilts to be somewhat controlled by using a single fabric sashing or patch element thru the whole quilt. I think it unifies the look.

I like to use one color, fabric in all my scrappy quilts. I may be doing total scrappy soon. I collect more scraps with every quilt I make. I made 7 scrappy quilts the beginning of this year, never used all of them.

Nope, hate scrappy. I think the ones I have like have been the color coordinated more controlled scrappy

I've just started cutting for a controlled scrappy quilt. My FIL let me know he's cold & MIL steals all sheets & blankets so of course I promised him a quilt. :-) This is called Birds of a feather & since I use a lot of little pieces & bits of this or that, it's going to be scrappy. LOL! My DH calls them leftovers quilts. LOL! I'm just making it a lap quilt extra long so he can bring it from room to room and really cover up with it, & will put a flannel back on it.

Hey there 'red oak' , it's always nice to meet a scrappy quillter and horiculturist among us!:D
You know you can't control the insanity of a scrappy quilt, for me they just happen and I will make almost any pattern into a scrappy.

When browsing magazines and books something will strike me as looking like a fun project and out come the scraps and playing with the pattern I picked to see if it will work.

All my quilts grow untill they are done regardless of any measurements. Some may be wall hangings and some become big enough to cover a queen size bed.

One of my favorite patterns is Path Through the Woods. It uses lots of triangles and you can really mix it up and the finished quilt looks just like you planned it that way.

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Another cool scrap pattern is Ocean Waves. Again many triangles and they look so great.

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IMHO just about any pattern can be turned to a scrappy with just a little planning by adding a neutral color as one of the components to give the quilt some unity.

A neutral can be any color. It can act as a place to rest the eye or to define areas to slow down a very busy quilt.

The neutralizer can also be one color in many similar shades with different fabrics to countinue the scrappy theme.

This is how I start to plan a scrappy. Now , with all the info you gather from this thread, I will be expecting to see some scrappies from you posted soon:D.
peace

I use my scraps for "sew and flip" quilts. The center of each block is a focus fabric, and I choose coordinating colors of strips from my scrap bag to fill out the blocks. Another style that I make is to sew strips diagonally on a foundation piece usually using strips from the same fabric for the center strip and filling out with scraps.

I really enjoy using scraps!

As far as prepping the fabric goes, my scraps have been pre-washed before using them and treated with Retayne if necessary.

We love scrappy quilts - both of us had quilting grandmothers and they did it the old-fashioned way. They only used scraps and everything was cut out with scissors and hand-sewn.

We haven't made a scrap quilt yet, but we have been cutting our scraps into 1.5" strips to make a pineapple quilt. We bought Gyleen Fitzgerald's "Trash to Treasure" book and pineapple ruler. We have made one block and we LOVE how it turned out. We have enough to make a quilt, but too many other projects keep jumping line.

Darren

I am a minimalist and started to hyperventilate because of all the scraps I had laying around. I made a very scrappy quilt that looked like x's. I pulled that pattern out of a magazine. That was my inspiration to start making more scrappy quilts and experimenting with putting fabrics together.

I am a scrapper from way back! I am probably more of a controlled scrappy piecer. My favorite to make with scraps .. Log cabin with 1&1/2 inch strips. The narrow strips help the colors to bend into each other.

I love love LOVE! scrappy quilts. they are just my favorite. anything controled just bores me to no end! I can do them but I don't enjoy them like I do my scrappies! I have made DNP 9patch for a friend, crumb quilt for my another dear friend. She just loves it. I made a rail fence for my BIL.Chinese coins for a baby, many scrappies for babies that I can't count. I love to make strip blocks for quilts. Oh 10 minute block quilt is another one. I can't count them, but I love them! Can't get enough of them.

I'm a "scrapper" for all my quilts. Use the brown bag method for allmost all the quilts I make. Log cabin, Dp9, rail fence, etc.

I recently was given the off cuts from a shirting factory (absolutely beautiful soft cottons), as you can imagine all sizes and colours. As far as I could, I cut them into strips, and sorted them into lengths. Also cut various sized squares. Then made log cabin blocks. Then my love of puzzles came into play! Had to cut a few to fit, but the end result was very pleasing.

I've made many, many scrap quilts. In fact I don't remember ever making a quilt for which I had to buy all the fabric. Friends give me all their scraps, and I mean down to the lint. LOL I,ve made a Freedom Quilt (log cabin with anything around a center piece, square or not) several confetti quilts. (Flip and sew onto foundation strips, then sew the strips together.) Scrappy Trails (Jacobs Ladder, but this one had a background of a single color.)

When I first starting cutting up fabric left from clothing sewing, I made 6 inch squares. The stuff that wasn't square got to be 6 by whatever. Last year I went into this box and started sewing these 6 inch strips into squares. I just picked three or four (or more) strips that would total 6 inches/ Size was my measure, not color or pattern. I sewed these squares into rows like a rail fence, put that on the bias with white corner triangles and a piano key border, (more 6 inch strips, any width). I thought of it as a charity quilt. At the quilt show, that was the quilt that the photographer put into the local paper with a friend admiring "a colorful quilt". Scrappy quilts can be quite stunning.

I've done both the controlled scrappy and the "brown bag" scrappy. Depends on the idea I have at the time. Right now I am sewing all those odd triangles together that have been left over or cut off of strips, snowballs, etc. I just match up those that are close to the same size, then square them up. This is something I do when I have trouble sleeping or awaken early and don't want to wake the rest of the household up. When I'm done I'll decide what quilt design I'll make.
This year I have been working on depleting my scrap stash. It looks like I'll be doing that next year also.

I love scrappy quilts, but do like something to "pull" the quilt together...whether it is a center square, a sashing, setting squares....I think the eye needs someplace to rest in a scrappy quilt.

I cannot wait to do my first scrap quilt. I don't have much of my own stash yet, although it is building quickly. I received a huge bag of flannel scraps from a former quilt shop owner and am having a lot of fun cutting them all into 2.5" squares. No rhyme or reason to them. Most are pretty dark, some are floral, some plaid. I am still deciding on the actual pattern to use for them.

I am a "controled scrappy" person. I think that if each block is pretty, then the whole quilt will be. Yes, I hid ugly fabrics in my scrappies but they turn out to be not so ugly after all. I am choosy about what piece goes next to this piece but I do use my scraps.

I love scrappy quilts.., I started precutting my scraps, and it never seems to get done...Like all patterns and mixtures

I am a very scrappy person in life and in quilts. I love them all, but the best are the scrappy. The more scrappier it is the more user friendly it is. The fancier and less scrappy is more likely to be hung up and displayed instead. Presently I am fighting the hoarder in me and using all the little scraps I have in one big crazy quilt. I'm one of those that thinks it can all go together in a quilt even if it really doesn't go together.

Scrappies are my favourites. I do not prepare fabric into any size etc- I just trawl through books/mags/internet until I find a pattern that I like then I go through my stash and scrap bins.

I also like to use either black/white as a solid colour (as can be seen in my avatar) and I always put on a border - generally using a tone on tone fabric that pics up some of the colours used in the blocks.

I am a scrap=o-holic. That is all I make I think. I do like controlled scrappies though.

I do controlled scrap quilts. The controlled color might be red for example with several different fabrics, but all about the same color. I get nervous when I have to coordinate so many fabric choices and spend too much time "fussing" about which one is "perfect". Thanks for sharing the Mary's Quilt site. I had not seen that one before.

I've recently fallen in love with scrappy patchwork. Mine is more of a controlled scrappy. I also only make small projects like pot holders, mug rugs, and mug sleeves. I'm trying the "quilt as you go" method.

I'm reading this thread with great interest, as I am a new quilter and surprised at how quickly scraps accumulate. My question to everyone is: what is the smallest size scrap you would keep?

I am also really into controlled scraps. Lol* Lord please don't strike me down when I say this - but I seriously did not like Bonnie Hunter's quilts when I first started quilting!!! Hers was the first site I found online about ten years when I was just beginning and I used a lot of her tutorials to get started but I didn't make any of her quilts until a couple years ago. It took me some time to "get" the concept behind her scrappyness...and I still am not quite as scrappy as she is but I see the brilliance behind what she does. There is a lot to be learned from that lady!

As for my scraps, for the LONGEST time I didn't like to cut them up and mess with them. I found when I used Bonnie's method I used the more - but it's seriously a pain for me and takes up too much space. Recently I started just cutting everything into 2" strips and putting anything smaller than that in my "string" bin. I seriously have an INSANE amount of scraps and it just makes life easier. I'd much rather just go buy a group of fabrics and shoot for controlled scrappy then pull 'em out at random.

For me this varies. At first I kept EVERYTHING...and I mean EVERYTHING. Now I keep strings about .75 inch to under 2" and no piece smaller than 1.5"x1.5". I love making small quilts and do lot of paper piecing so I do keep "crumbs" around - I have a basket that I just call my "itty bitties". But if I have like 800 1" triangles left...I often toss them because I just have SO much that I'll probably never use them as it is!

all of the above---well sort of---i make plenty of scrappy quilts-sometimes they are quite controlled- sometimes they are not- sometimes i use a pattern- either one i have or one i see somewhere- sometimes i just start sewing scraps together & see where it takes me. if my (scrap) is fq sized or larger it gets folded & put back onto the shelves with all the fabric- if it's smaller/odd shaped/a real scrap- it gets tossed into a tote...when i decide to work on something scrappy i start with the tote- sorting-pulling out what i think will work for what i have in mind- then i may add pull more fabrics from the shelves. there are lots of scrap lover books- patterns- or you can just look at any pattern out there & (choose) to make it out of your scraps- one block at a time- i also applique alot- so my scrap tote comes in handy for all sorts of applique pieces.- i participated in '50 stars in 50 weeks program' here on the board this past year & used mostly scraps for my 50 stars- with a common background--some participants used all scraps- even their backgrounds. as soon as i finish my wool project i'm trying to get done i plan to start a new (lone-star) project that uses 256 different 1 1/2" strips of fabric- 128 lights, 128 darks- i'm going to try to do it with scraps.

Have made a few scrappies but dont really prepare them anyway. But have made several Mile A Minute, also several strips just sewn together. Have fun creating.

I make only scrappy quilts. I started with "controlled" scrappy quilts and gradually grew bolder. My first ones were only one color with a small spark of another color as accent. Then I started going hog wild :) I use lost of different patterns--some I find on the web and sometimes I invent one. Whatever you do have fun!

All my quilts are scrappy. My GGM, GM & my mom made scrappy quilts. I can't help it, :thumbup:that's the way quilts should look to me.

I love the throw everything in including the kitchen sink method. I think after taking a class with Bonnie Hunter, it freed me to see that everything really does go together. I still laugh when I think of her telling us, to use the ugliest thing we can find in our stash in everything. If it still bothers you, you just haven't cut it up small enough yet!