A Red Scrap Strippy Quilt Tutorial

I have several postings that I have started, but never finished...kind of ridiculous really.  I should really introduce myself it has been so long.  I have actually had several finishes of my own projects and have machine quilted several pieces for customers as well.

Here is a pile of reddish scraps out of my strings drawer.....I am sure I am not the only one that has one.  

I had someone give me a huge roll of this.  It is like a loose woven muslin about 2 1/2" wide and I cut off 2 strips of it and used it for my base. (The measurement of the length is up to you.....it might depend on the amount of fabric you have to finish it with.)  But you could use paper or a thin sew in interfacing.....something to use as a stabilizer and base.

And away I went covering it with my bits of red fabrics.....sewing and flipping as you go.  

Here you can see I am adding another scrap with right sides together and sewing it down with 1/4" seam......which really isn't that important with this type of project.  So if you struggle with an accurate seam allowance this project is for you.

Then pressing it over......this is the "flip-part" in the sew and flip method.

You can see how I am covering that muslin strip and it looks a messy at this point because I haven't trimmed them yet.  And you can also see how small of pieces I am using up.  I love it!

By the way here is my basket of thread I am working my way through.  I have a couple drawers where I keep my thread, but between a garage sale last summer in Vinton and helping some friends pack and move and she gifted me most of her thread.  I have tons of it, this is my over-flow basket....and some of it is very old.  I have always heard you shouldn't use old thread, but I have only thrown away 1 or 2 spools where the thread would break easy if I tugged on it.  If it doesn't break or shred when I pull on it I use it.  I have clean off about 25 spools.....by looking at the basket you would never guess that.

I am getting near the end of my strip and you can see I don't necessarily trim these edges and make them straight, I do that when I add the next strip.

Here you can see how I added the next strip and I made sure this one was wide enough to cover the end and finish it.  I didn't want to use a skinny strip here.....too bulky.

Here are my covered strips ready to be trimmed....

I flipped them over and will use the back side to line up my ruler and trim off all the hairy strips!

Before I started I looked through my border stripe scraps found this piece and when I folded it into thirds.....the size was just what I was looking for and a great way to use this piece up.  By the way I love buying border fabrics....many times I have gotten them on clearance because most don't know what to do with them.  I have loved them for a long time.  They give you piece a real design punch with zero work.....just sayin!

See what I mean!  Look how awesome those humble red bits look!  You can make this absolutely any size length or width.  The determination of this piece was the 1 piece of border I had left over and I divided it so I would have 3......I like thirds.  And just like that you have a top and it is wonderful!

Here it is all quilted and bound.  I machine stitched it in the ditch and added a little specialty stitching with my "fancy smancy" machine, just cause I can!

You can see that below....it is a double or triple blanket stitch and makes that one band look like ribbon.

These kinds of projects are so fun......fast.....compared to most of the projects I work on and using up left over besides.  Win!  Win!

Go out and stitch some scraps up today!