Stella Quilting

My first two quilts sort of set the tone for who I am as a quilter. My first quilt was a little experiment in applique for my new baby, and my second was a scrap quilt born out of a reluctance to throw away perfectly good material.

My husband was a young lawyer and his pinpoint cotton button down shirts would wear out at the collars and cuffs long before the rest of the shirt wore out. I just couldn’t bear to toss them, so I made another little quilt. I remember that Laura Ingalls Wilder’s first quilt was a nine-patch, so that is what I made. Again, I tied it with floss instead of traditional quilting, and I can’t tell you what the back was, but it feels thrifted. Haha, not at all like nice quilting cotton.

Since I have my own longarm quilting machine now, I recently took out the ties to quilt it properly and I haven’t had the time, but I made another one out of his old shirts just a few years ago.

I still have a strong urge to quilt scraps. I used to save them from my job and made a couple of string quilts. I’ve recently re-organized my large scraps into color-coded drawers so that I can more easily use them in fabric collages or quilts.

Also, when I finish a quilt of my own (not my client’s!), I’ll cut the smaller scraps or binding into 2.5 inch squares for later use. Currently, the green ones are being used as leaders and enders on their way to becoming an Irish Chain quilt.

I had no idea how many scrappy quilts I have made!

How do you feel about scraps? Are you inclined to use them? Toss them? Or save them and feel guilty because you don’t like scraps? Haha! No judgement–we are all different. But your scraps could be someone else’s treasured quilt.

Lately, I have begun sorting my scraps intentionally. I keep long 2.5” strips in a box. Short ones get cut into 2.5” squares and are in color-coded stacks. I have 1.5” strips together to make strip sets or string quilts, and I save all the little triangles I cut off blocks to make tiny hourglasses!

These may eventually become 1.5” squares and part of a very scrappy quilt!

What kinds of scraps do you save, if any? What do you like to do with them?