One way I like to cut down on my growing scrap fabric pile is by making what I call my scrappy quilt squares. I don’t call them quilt blocks because they really are just little squares!
Because I got a set of acrylic templates 3 or 4 months ago when I started making these squares and out of the different sizes that were in the pack it just seemed a manageable size!
Why 3 & 1/2″?
You don’t have to sew for very long to get your scraps large enough to cut a 3 & 1/2" square out of! So it’s satisfying to finish a little something at the end of the night without too much effort.
Background Fabric
Because I have a quilt in mind for them, I am trying to use either white or black on the edge of each square and the coloured scraps in the middle.
The idea is that when I sew them together it will look like little peekaboo colour on a somewhat homogenous background.
So it might be one white based scrappy quilt and one black or maybe I will use the black squares to make a stripe on the quilt backing as I have less of them than the white based ones.
Improv Sewing Method
I’ve used a few different ways to make these, but my favourite is the one I’ve illustrated in the images below.
Basically unlike a log cabin sort of approach where you are trying to line up straight edges I let myself cross over at angles and then trim a bit of excess fabric off when I need to.