Super Easy Scrappy Quilt as You Go

Lately I’ve been seeing a ton of scrappy quilting. Its all over my Pinterest and Instagram. Makes sense to me, I have always loved the scrappy look. Its fun and whimsical, not to mention practical. If you are a sewist or a quilter you know about scraps. There are a ton of them! Every project you make creates scraps.

There are a couple of ways to achieve the scrappy look. You can spend hours cutting and putting together tiny fabric pieces to make a design. If you have the patience to do that, great! I prefer a quicker and more random method, raw edge quitling. I really enjoy this method because I can use up a bunch of scraps and it doesn’t take all day to feel like I have accomplished a lot.

I start by laying out my backing and batting. Using spray baste, I put the batting on the backing. ( I like this one)

Then I start laying out some scraps to choose colors and patterns I like together. Start with larger scraps and work you way down. Working to cover all of the batting, I continue layering on pieces of fabric to make a design. I use my basting spary to stick each piece down so they don’t move until I quilt them. You could also quilt the larger scraps down first and then add more scraps on top. For this project, I layed out all my scraps into my design before quilting anything.

You can use any pattern for the quilting. For quilt as you go, usually you would use straight lines along the edge of your fabric piece. But if you lay out all your scraps first, it doesn’t matter how you quilt it. Because my fabric design is usally busy, I like to do the quilting a little simpler. For this one, I did a straight grid.

Here is my larger grid. Then I go back in between my lines to make the grid tighter and catch all the corners of my scraps. Sometimes I like to add in some extra stitching with my machine or even hand stitching for a little extra interest. Once this panel is done, it can be trimmed and used as a block in a larger quilt, or as a piece all on its own. You could also use a quilted panel to make a small bag or pouch. There are so many possibilites.

I love the look of scrappy quilting. Once it is washed, you get the great texture of a quilt with the added detail of a little fraying. Its a great way to be frugal and use up all your scraps, even the tiny ones!! Comments and questions are welcomed, Happy Scrapping!!