What is a "scrap quilt"?

When I first started quilting and I told my sis that I was making a scrap quilt, her expression was “ugh”.

Then she saw it - and decided that “Hmm…that’s not quite what I was thinking!”

I think she thought this was what I meant when I said I was making a scrap quilt - (She has told me in no uncertain terms that this is by FAR the ugliest quilt I have ever made.)

A Hot Mess

Of course she wasn’t a quilter at that point- and I was sort of a beginner. But when I showed her that this is also a scrap quilt - she said, “Fine - then I like them!”

Dots and Dashes

What is a scrap quilt to you?

Is it when you use up your scraps?

or

Is it simply a quilt that uses a lot of little pieces which you may actually go and buy just for that quilt?

Probably both. I’m not sure that you can actually distinguish between the two as a finished quilt unless someone tells you the origin of their fabrics.

Someone wrote me once and told me I should use at least 20 different fabrics in a scrappy quilt and he wanted to know how many I had used (in one color). I wrote him back and said I didn’t know and that I hadn’t heard about that rule and that I didn’t know exactly how many of any one color I had used. I had no idea that there were “rules”.

So what do you think?

Is a quilt made out of a “Jelly Roll by Moda” a scrap quilt?

I make my scrap quilts MOSTLY with scraps, adding only from my stash if I am short. Most of the time I don’t actually go cut up stash to make one of the 2” strips and squares quills unless it is for the “constant” in the quilt - the white or the black or the red, etc.

However, a few times I have searched for small pieces in the colors I needed and I have gone ahead and made strips out of it in order to finish up a top.

I know that I need to make mostly scrap quilts because I don’t always have access to a lot of any one fabric. Making a scrap quilt solves that problem nicely.

Let me show you.

My most recent finish - I called it my Beige Wedding Quilt was in reality, a scrap quilt. I did use what I could find - and I made these blocks: I had to. I needed beige and didn’t have 8-10 yards of any one fabric. I did have 1/2-2 yards, however of several different ones. It was my answer to how to make a quilt in those colors while not having a ton of any one fabric. And access to a store? Hmm. There are on line shops and a couple in Warsaw, but selections are limited.

Here’s another one. My husband came home from a trip to the Ukraine and told me that his coworker there needed a quilt - he had recently lost his wife and was sleeping in a room with a nautical theme but didn’t have a proper quilt. So, he asked my husband asked me if I could come up with one with boats - especially sailboats - as the theme.

I used a bunch of different blues in this and as many of the nautical prints as I had. In many ways it’s a scrap quilt - though I pulled it from my stash. They are not small scraps - different people have different definitions of what is a scrap.

So this is what I did. I didn’t have a TON of fabrics - but I did have a few with sailboats on them (I told you my stash is BIG!)

There are a lot of different blues in this - and frankly, I’m undecided whether it is a scrap quilt or not.

Technically, I suppose not - but it does have a scrappy look - especially up close when you can see the variety of fabrics I used - specifically the blues.

I hadn’t thought of this one as a scrap quilt but in reality - I used pretty much anything I had that was even close to the colors I wanted in it - I made it before my scraps/stash had grown to such mammoth proportions that it is now. It’s from 2013 and I was aiming for cappuccino brown and dark red - the wife had told me they were her favorite colors. I remember posting it somewhere - probably on quilting board and someone wrote me and asked me what “line of fabric” I used. I just laughed (to myself). I had hardly “heard of” lines of fabrics back then. I certainly wasn’t following any designers or brand names. I just used what I had.

Some people say a scrap quilt is when you throw a bunch of pieces of fabric in a bag, for instance, and pull it out and then use that one as the next piece of fabric to sew.

That’s one way.

I don’t generally use that method. It is a good way to make a string quilt like this one, however. I didn’t really plan the string placement.

Most of my quilts are what is commonly called “controlled scrappy” - meaning that there is a planned color scheme -

It can be a careful placement of lights, brights, darks, browns, blacks, low volume, etc. It just depends. Some of the scrap quilts I’ve made are MOSTLY scraps with a little “planned” pieces and some are seemingly not very many scraps.

Here are a couple of the the ones that are mostly scrappy - not really a very controlled color scheme - except for the sashing and cornerstone blocks.

Ice Cube Prisms

and this one which uses a lot of scraps as well but it is a very controlled scrappy - using darks and lights carefully.

Warm Fuzzies

Some of them use fewer scraps -

Urban Development

and more background!

Quiet

I think they can be simple like this one I call simply Light and Dark:

or they can be quite complicated:

Arapaho Roads

They can have a “country” feel

Snowballs ‘n Scraps

or not -

Scrap Drama

It just all depends!

So, if you happen to be one who really does like scrappy, but you have a friend who says, “I hate scrap quilts - what do you like about them?” maybe she is thinking like my sis was - Maybe it’s time to educate her (or him)! You can start by showing them this post! Then talk about it.

Scrap quilts aren’t for everyone - but being educated - well THAT can be for everyone!

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Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store!

Keep scrolling way down at the bottom of this post for how to enter the Birthday Bash Drawing!

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Birthday Bash Fun!

To enter to win a free reusable Polish bag and a yard of Polish fabric, answer this question in the comments below:

Is a quilt made from a “Jelly Roll” a scrap quilt? Tell me what you think!