Linda's BEE DIFFERENT lesson

Linda taught at our April guild meeting and she gave us some super ideas on how to be different by using our scraps for quilts and other fun projects like bags, pillows, and sewing kits.

Linda especially likes making bags because you can try out new block patterns and you only have to make one or two blocks. If you like that block, great, then you can decide if you want to make a full sized quilt using that pattern. If you don't like that block, then make it into a bag and call it good. You can try out different colors and the placement of color in various blocks and do the same thing - make a bag. Linda also practices her free motion quilting on bags. It is a small project that you can experiment using various quilting motives.

Linda brought many many scrappy quilts that she has made over the years to share with us and to show us what really works and what doesn't work.


Linda told us the best way to start using your scraps for projects is to organize them. Organize by size. The best way to go about this is when you are finished with a sewing project, don't just wad those extra fabric pieces (SCRAPS) up and put them away. Cut them right away into usable pieces. Maybe you want to start with 6 inch squares and 3 by 6 inch rectangles. Cut the leftover fabric from your previous project into these usable sized pieces, label them, and store them all together. Keep doing this with leftover fabric from projects and soon you will have a pile of 6 inch squares of all kinds of fabric to make something great with.
Linda suggested using the AccuCut at Seasons of Home. You can take fabric into the store and get it cut into 5" charm squares, 2 1/2" jelly roll strips, or 10" layer cakes. This way you can get USABLE pieces out of your scraps.



One tip Linda gave was to control your color scheme. The quilt above has a controlled color scheme even though it uses many different colored scraps of fabric.


Linda taught us that one important aspect of having a scrappy quilt turn out nicely is paying attention to color value. What is dark and what is light? You need to figure it out before you begin putting your quilt together. What may seem like a light fabric, may really be quite dark compared to the rest of the light fabrics or the dark fabrics being used. She also said that you shouldn't work with less than 7 fabrics. If you do, you run into trouble when they all get put together because it isn't scrappy enough.

Linda shared some fun websites with us.

http://www.scrapquilt..com/ She said the gallery is great.

http://www.quilterscache.com/ Many block patterns that work great with scraps.

http://www.worldwidequiltingpage.com/ Print out grids if you want to figure out color placement.

Thanks Linda for teaching us how to Bee Different with our scraps and all the great tips you shared with us. The trunk show was amazing too!

Oh, and just for fun, all husbands have favorite quilts, and this is Linda's husband's favorite scrappy quilt - the bulls eye pattern.