Calling All Scrap Lovers
Posted by Judy Gauthier on Jun 9th 2020
Hey Scrap Lovers! My latest release from C&T Publishing is Sensational Quilts for Scrap Lovers!
I have so many scraps in my sewing room. People often ask me how I get so many scraps. Well, like most quilters, I sew a lot of things that aren’t just quilts. I like to sew garments too. I love to sew pajamas, and I love to make lots and lots of other projects.
Unlike most quilters, I own a quilt shop. When you own a quilt shop, you take home ends of bolts. When there is a small piece of fabric left over from the end of a bolt, it can be cut into fat quarters, but anything remaining either gets put into a remnant basket, or taken home by yours truly. That’s me. The pile up really gets out of control in my sewing room, so I make scrap quilts.
The problem that most people encounter when they make scrap quilts is that they don’t think their scraps will ever work together. Quilters will have scraps left over from lots of different projects. For example, I have hockey fabric left over from making pajamas for my son. I also have pieces that are food related, usually from table runners. So how to “marry” these scraps into a scrap quilt? The answer to this huge question is found in all of my books about scrap quilting. This is my third book about scrap quilting and each book gives many, many ideas as to how to make your scraps work together for you.
In Sensational Quilts for Scrap Lovers I have 11 quilts that use unique cutting techniques, and show you how to use up all of those unusual scraps to make beautiful quilts. And, most of them are beginner friendly!
I think that my favorite quilt in this book is Aerial View. This quilt is a nod to improv, but isn’t improv at all. Any and all of your scraps will feel at home in this quilt. The inspiration for this quilt is my childhood. I remember being up in my dad’s airplane and seeing the patchwork quilt that is the ground. This quilt has a fun and unique cutting technique that will have everyone exclaiming “Where is the block?” Make sure that you save all of your neutral or background scraps for this one. You may even need to call on your quilting bestie and share a few!
I think that my next favorite one is Frontal Boundaries. The inspiration for this quilt came on a particularly cold day in Wisconsin, during what was called the Polar Vortex. It is different from other temperature quilts in that it is a weather map from a single day. Most temperature quilts take temperatures from a certain time period, but I did mine from one very cold day in the United States.
There is definitely something for everyone in this book. In fact, there’s probably something for everyone even if you don’t collect your scraps and you are just a collector of fabric. Use up your stash and your fat quarters!
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