A "Scrappy" Challenge

I have a tendency to hoard fabric.  Even little pieces and scraps.  I can't seem to throw any of it away.  I have managed to somewhat organize my gigantic pile of scraps into color coded boxes.  But, even separated and organized, things were beginning to get a little bit out of control.  So, I decided it was time to use up some of those scraps.  Here is a sneak peek at my latest project.  It is a scrappy string quilt.

 

I just love looking at it!  It is so colorful!

 And here is how I did it. 

I started with the white strips in the middle.  I cut out as many strips as I could find going through my cabinet.  All of these strips were 2.5" x 19 ".  I picked this size because I have a 10" square and when you turn it diagonally it is about 18 inches.  Then, I went through all my scraps picking out any that could be used as the stripes.  I didn't worry about how wide or long they were, I just put them all in a pile.  It looked a little like this:

Now, if just the sight of this chaos overwhelms you, fear not!  You can organize your scraps in pretty little pressed piles and keep right on sewing.  I, dear friend, do not function that way.  So, all the scraps got tossed on the sewing table and then the sewing began!  I would pick up a white strip and then randomly pick a color.  I started with the longest strips and gradually worked down to smaller ones on either side of the white strip.  When each "square" was finished, it looked something like this:

My experience has been that it doesn't matter what colors go with what, as long as you put enough different colors and prints together, it all looks good.  So, I didn't worry so much about coordinating different colors.  Once you think you've got enough sewn together, iron everything flat. 

I pressed my seams out from the middle on each side.  But you can open them and press them flat if you want.  Once it is all nice and pressed, take out your square.  If you don't have a square, you could just use a rotary cutter and a straight edge, but the square really makes this MUCH easier. 

I slid the square around a bit until the white strip seemed to be in the middle and all of the corners were covered. 

Using a rotary cutter, cut each side.

This is the square when it is all cut and pressed.  Now, I know it doesn't look that impressive sitting all by itself.  But once you add some friends.......

it really begins to look amazing!

This is a great beginner quilt because nothing really has to line up, or be cut exactly, or measured.  It could be as big or as small as you would like.  I hope you check back in to see the final results!