Photo of string quilt blocks

Color Selections for Scrap Quilts

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Which are You — Kitchen Sinker or Color Coordinator?

Many scrap quilters use the “kitchen sink” approach when they piece together scrappy quilts and just pull out scraps of  whatever color or pattern happen to be on the top of the scrap bin. This scrappy quilt in progress is a good example of this style:blankblankThis assortment of tumbler blocks also represents the kitchen sink philosophy:blankblankBecky Etal’s scrap quilt in progress shows a higher level of color sorting. Notice how she has organized the dark and light fabrics to create the quilt’s diamond pattern. It’s still a very scrappy quilt composed of many different fabric colors and prints. blank

Here’s a string quilt top that looks at first glance like a kitchen-sink quilt. But when you study it a little more carefully, you can see certain colors and prints repeating themselves throughout the quilt. My eye is especially drawn to the strips of yellow, pink, bright blue, green, and red-and-white. The repetition of the same colors gives the quilt a pleasing sense of order, even though it looks chaotic at first. String quilt photo

Even if you use all the different colors of the rainbow in your quilt, you can enhance the way it looks by organizing the colors into lights and darks. This beautiful scrappy quilt by ButtonTree Lane owes its distinctive Trip Around the World pattern to the way the darker and lighter fabrics are arranged in the quilt.

blankI’ve found that I like my scrappy quilt blocks best if the scraps that go into them come from just a couple of coordinated color families.  These blocks from a string quilt I made for a friend all draw from the same palette of white prints with a few splashes of color thrown in here and there.blankblankThis string quilt I made for my daughter concentrated on her favorite colors — red, orange, brown, and yellow. blank

Using Solids to Harmonize Scrap Quilt Colors

If you want your scrap quilts to have a calmer, more controlled look, consider mixing your scrappy colors with white solids or prints. Solids have the power to bring calm to an otherwise wild assortment of different fabrics. This baby quilt is a good example of how white can tame a scrappy quilt. blankThis scrappy nine-patch quilt from Becky Etal accomplishes the same harmonizing effect with a mauve background fabric. blankThese scrappy Chinese Coins quilts from A Beginner’s Guide to Quilting show how beautifully a single solid fabric can unify the scrappy sections of a quilt.

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The orange sashing in this quilt by MissMessie to unify a motley assortment of other fabrics. blank

Sorting Your Scraps for Quilting

If you are a kitchen sinker, you don’t really need to sort your scraps by color. Being a color coordinator, I do sort my scraps into color families. I use two of these laundry sorters to separate scraps into color groups. (Yes, I do generate a lot of scraps!)blank blankLike most things in my sewing room, the laundry sorters are on wheels so I can move them out of the way when I’m not using them. I used to use plastic bins, but they got filled up too quickly and then my sewing room became cluttered with random piles of scraps. Not good!

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4 Comments

  1. I am looking for the roman quilt pattern to download but all I get is the picture of it. How can I download?

    Thank you.
    Bonnie

    1. Sorry, Bonnie, there isn’t a pattern for the roman stripes quilt. It was made from a group of string quilts that were matched with a maroon solid fabric and sewed into half-square triangles.

  2. I’m in the process of mankig a full size nine-patch quilt for my daughter. My sisters (I have five) quilt, too. We love getting together to work on a quilt. Quilting is addictive, plus it makes for some great times with the sisters. Lots of laughs and lots of ideas come out.

    1. That sounds like so much fun! I wish I had five quilting sisters. Or even one! Creating things together is the best.

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