I have far too many scraps. And I'm not very good at using them, not really. My problem is that I save pieces that are far smaller than I should because I *might* use them. I do, on occasion, use excessively small pieces, but not super often. Another problem I have is hoarding those scraps. If I have a large-ish scrap and I need a smaller piece, I'm loathe to cut it down if I cut off a large but not large enough piece, because then that piece I'm cutting off is wasted.
Yes, I have a problem.
So, as you can imagine, I have a lot of scraps. I wanted to do a scrap quilt just as a quilt instead of my usual leaders and enders project this year (I have a great one going right now that I think will turn out so good!), and I saw a simple Irish Chain quilt in a monochrome color way with low volume scraps on Instagram somewhere. They're not groundbreaking, of course, so it could have been anywhere, but I think it might have been on A Crafty Fox, she has a lot like that. And I think Diary of a Quilter has a tutorial...
Anyway, I decided to wing it, because I know how to sew nine patches. And I did it in aqua. I opted to sew with what I had, so some got sewn as strips and then subcut, and others got sewn together as individual squares.
Against my better judgement, I decided to alternate the nine patches with single squares of fabric. I should have sewn nine patches together with just low volumes for the alternate squares, but in my head I thought that might get too busy. However, I think the way I did it is too plain. It did make it quick, though!
I don't love this top. (It is fully sewn together, now, I just didn't get a pic of it while it was daylight before I folded it up and delivered it to the quilter...so you'll have to wait until it comes back!) AND, somehow I still manage to get blocks mixed up as I sew rows together. I ended up with a couple of background squares way too close together even though I did lay it out before I started...weird. I mean, weird that I clearly haven't figured out my method for getting rows to my sewing machine in order, even though I totally think I have, and I've been sewing quilts for a lot of years by now. Oh well, that's what seam rippers are for, eh?
I exclusively used scraps for this top, and I decided to use a piece of Anna Maria Horner fabric that I was given for the backing. It's a turquoise and it doesn't really match my aqua tones super well, though there are some that are a fair enough match, and it has yellow and red and pink and citrine flowers in sort of stripes. I didn't think about lining up the stripes before cutting and luckily I was able to flip one piece around and have it work out well enough...sigh. But, the backing was FREE, and I'm all about that for a scrappy project, lol
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