Is your scrap basket overflowing? Have we got the cure for you! Play with your scraps with this fun, stress-free quilt.
Gather your scraps of whatever size you like and a coordinating fabric or neutral for the background. We used some approximately 1″ x 4″ scraps and a cream solid leftover.
Jumble up your scraps and put them in a little basket beside your sewing area to help get a truly random effect.
Lay two scraps right sides together, and skew the top fabric to create an irregular angle. It’s easiest to sew the pair with a quarter inch foot following the straight edge of the top fabric, but any foot can be used so long as you sew a consistent distance wide enough for your seam allowance.
Chain piece pairs until you’re out of scraps!
Trim the seam allowances. You can use a ruler and rotary cutter, of course, but Karen Kay Buckley’s Perfect 7 1/2″ scissors made quick work of the trimming for us.
Press the pairs towards the top fabric. You can tell which is the top fabric because it is still in a rectangle.
To assemble a strip, sew two pairs together, trim the seam allowance, press, and then add another pair to the top. Repeat until the strip is the desired length. Make sure to vary the directions of the angles so your strip stays fairly straight.
You can plan out the layout of your whole strip by lining them up on the ironing board. Grab the next pair after ironing the strip.
Once the strip is the desired length, trim the sides, making sure there are no gaps at the edge. Trim the top and bottom straight.
To make the Improv Coin Quilt, sew a strip of the background fabric to one side of a coin strip. You decide the width and length. On the last coin strip, add a background fabric strip to both sides. Quilt as desired and bind.
Want to have more improv fun? Play with Gwen Marston in her iquilt class, Liberated Quiltmaking . Gwen takes you on an adventure that will bust your stashing with marvelous outcomes in a relaxing playful sewing adventure. Set a weekend aside and immerse yourself in the world of quilting fun like no other!
Take a look…
VIDEO online at iquilt.com or get the DVD.
