Teeny Tiny Scraps Shadow Box Craft

“How small is too small?”

Whenever I am speaking on scrap quilting, no matter the audience, this is a guaranteed question. I think people are looking for either A) someone to tell them it is okay to throw out fabric at some point or B) that they aren’t crazy for keeping every little bit. And both of those people would be right.

My default answer is that I will keep pieces as small as 1-2’’ square. And little triangles left from making binding or other blocks. Definitely keep those. Not to mention all those stringy strings of fabric shedding bits of thread, I always keep those.

Then there are the trimmings. Because the bulk of the work I do is improvised at some point I need to trim and square up blocks or components on a quilt. I might be left with very useful scraps or a mess of threads and what used to look like fabric. While finishing up my last quilt top the dazzling array of bits left behind were just as inspiring to me as the blocks themselves. So I spent 5 minutes - yes, that is all it took - putting together this fun scrap project.

TEENY TINY SCRAPS SHADOW BOX CRAFT

Supplies

• Fabric trimmings, thread bits, and tiny scraps of fabric

• Clean Shadow Box Frame in any size

Instructions

1. Fill shadow box with trimmings. Arrange in a colour order, if desired.

Notes

• Take a little time to make the front side of the scraps pretty. The back of a fabric is really just another fabric in the collection, so it isn’t a big deal if it shows. Just be happy with the way the top layer of scraps looks.

• It might be tempting to jam in ALL the trimmings, but unless you have a latch on your shadow box frame it won’t stay closed. Experiment with just the right amount to be full yet still keep closed.

Now my project happens to match the last quilt top I finished, because it was that quilt itself and her gorgeous colours that gave me the idea. But this has the potential to be a whole different kind of art project. In a way it reminds me of the sand paintings that some people can do.

So, to answer the question: nothing is too small.

Pocket Squares - Improv Applique with Tag Fabrics

Pocket Squares

40’’ x 50’’

So many of my quilts start with random ideas. Some times the ideas come to a full quilt, other times not so much. Happy to say that after a few years this quilt is now fully done.

It started with mini charm packs of my Tag Fabrics that I cut for giveaways. I had one left over. Enter the need for a hand work project. The mini charm pack made friends with a charm pack of Kona solids sitting on the cutting table. I snipped a corner off each minicharm and appliqued it to the charms. Each one has slight variations - improv in hand applique!

After finishing all those I decided that I would do another layer of applique, bringing Tag fabrics back in to it. Each fabric in this collection of mine is represented in the quilt twice - once small and once as the background.

NOTE: This is why I am no good at promoting fabric collections. I started this quilt 2 years ago when my first collection came out and I am only just finishing it.

It isn’t a fancy quilt. I’m not breaking any design barriers either. But it sure was fun to make! Another great example of the process being as important, if not more so, than the finished quilt.

Because it’s been a long time since I quilted anything myself I got back into the swing of things with some straight line quilting. Originally, I thought I might do a grid, but at first pass my lines are 1/2’’ apart. That would have been a tiny grid! With chronic pain plaguing me these last 9 months I didn’t want to push it too much. I was just happy to have got through basting the thing. The Aurifil thread in this purple ended up perfect.

If you’ve ever seen me talk or paid attention to my quilts you know how I love to throw contrast into the whole thing. In this case, I introduced a completely different colour with this teal and white binding. Which brings me to my first finish of 2019 and my first finish since May of last year.

Oh, and full naming credit goes to my friend Sharon at Color Girl Quilts. Every time I posted a picture of this quilt on Instagram she said it made her think of pocket squares.

Epic Battle With the Scraps

Victory is mine!

A month ago - after teaching multiple scrap and Values Plus workshops - I got it in my head to buckle down and hit the scraps. And I hit them hard. While I have my lovely little bins of colour sorted a blue IKEA bag kept getting filled with strips and random bits. I sorted out a bunch of little bits back in May, but otherwise the bag sat there taunting me.

Hey you! Hey! I’m talking to you. You know you won’t throw me out, you simply can’t do that. But did you know I grow when you aren’t looking. The rest of the fabric? It comes to me at night and fills me up. You will never take me down!

Oh yeah? Let the battle begin.

I spent an hour or so sorting that bag by colour. Easy enough. And usually sorting is enough for me. It gives me the calm I want and finding order makes me happy. But there were just so many scraps! So I went headlong into the fury and am happy to say I emerged victorious!

This morning I finished the last of the blocks for a queen size quilts based on my Values Plus class. As I sorted, sewed, and trimmed for those blocks little bits and little strings revealed themselves, like soldiers stalking me in the grass. Well, they’ve been tamed too. I have a pile of skinny strings ready to action on my side - in some little log cabins. And the little bits leftover from battle are contained in colour sorted bags, another project in mind.

All my Morning Makes and any other free time in the last month has been spent on this battlefield. I became solely focused on this. While I generally have no issue with scraps something just got in me that these needed to be dealt with. Like an itch I couldn’t scratch it became an obsession to empty, sort, and use everything in that blue bag. While not everything is used yet, it all is designated or tamed. I am winning!

Now I hope to spend some time actually finishing a quilt or two, that’s a whole other battle.

Walk the Walk

As a quilt teacher one of my more popular classes is all about Scraps. It is a fun class to teach because people really do embrace their scraps in new ways. They’d been ready to give up and are suddenly rejuvenated.

I’ve actually taught Little Scraps, Big Options many times this year. When I prep for the class I’ve been digging in to an IKEA bag of random strips and pieces for a heavy handful. This comes with me for demo purposes and the leftovers thrown back in the bag. After my last trip I decided that I needed to walk the walk and tackle the sorting of that bag.

To be fair, I have scrap bins for fabric and they are used as I cut fabric all the time. I dig in to them regularly too. Little bits go in a special basket, triangles in another. But this huge IKEA bag keeps getting filled in the night. Like the opposite of the Shoemaker’s Elves, adding fabric instead of making with it.

So I poured a glass of wine one night last week and dove in to the big blue bag. In less than an hour I had piles of colours making my sewing table pretty. Yes, less than an hour. Sorting scraps is one of those overwhelming tasks that when we finally tackle it we wonder why we procrastinated. It ends up being not so bad, and in the case of scrap fabric, inspiring.

That was certainly the case for me. I immediately set to sewing some of those strips together. Okay, I might have been inspired by my Values Plus students. I taught that class a few times on this last trip too. And boom! In 4 days my orange and purple scraps are nearly gone in a stack of fun blocks.

Working on these blocks is a great scrap buster. As I go I am sorting out any trimmings in two piles. One is for my mini log cabins and the other for a different scrap project I’ve got in my head. It is putting so much order in to my scraps and that feels so, so good.

Scraps are a lot to deal with. Not to mention, working with them gets messy too. It can drive the organized person crazy. That’s why some folks like to cut everything to the same size and store them in neat piles. I get that. For the rest of us, sorting and using them in a planned manner gives us that same order. And 3 different scrap projects.