I tend to have a hard time with the concept of a scrappy quilt. What I mean is, I like the concept, (use up some fabric, make more closet space) but in practice, a truly scrappy quilt would be difficult with my current fabric stash. I rarely buy solid colors. I usually buy novelty fabric sets that work in their set, but the sets don’t work together at all.
I also don’t like muddy looking quilts and often times scrappy quilts start to be a bit overwhelming in the muddeling colors department. This is just a preference I have and constraints that my stash puts on me, as well as constraints I put on myself (stick around and you will see that I put a lot of constraints on myself). As far as quilts go: make what you like. I certainly do.
Which brings me to my next point, which is that I wanted a free project. I stitched together scraps of batting I had saved in order to make one big sheet of it. I used fabric left over from one or two projects. For the backing I used a white blanket that was laying around that we never used and don’t even know where it came from. I even used dark blue thread (gasp!) to sew all of my piecing together, most of which is white. It shows in places, but it’s on the inside so I didn’t care.
When it came time to quilt it, I struggled between keeping it a free quilt, or buying white thread. The fancy stitches used up more thread than I anticipated on the top layer. I didn’t have enough blue thread to do the binding and quilting. My options were to use another contrasting color, or buy white. If on the final stretch of my quilt I did things that would make me dislike the quilt, then being stubborn about it being free wasn’t going to be worth it. It pays to be honest with yourself and I knew if I used any color other than white for the quilting, then I wouldn’t like the quilt, and I would never use it. Back in the closet it would go, taking up closet space, and it would defeat the main purpose of the quilt in the first place.
I don’t think I can technically call this a scrappy quilt, and it’s not 100% a stash buster if I made a trip to the store, but overall, I’m happy with it. It lives on my couch and I use it several times a week.
Quirky Quilts 