Scrap Pile

Yesterday's scraps got thrown in my scrap strips bin. I even up the edges of scraps and put them in there for use on my string quilt. I also keep paper squares the size of the blocks I want in there too. I cut up my kids' school papers; otherwise they would just go in the recyle bin.

I occassionally get the strips out and sew a few blocks together. It's an old piecing method. I first saw a string pieced quilt similar to this years ago on a book cover: Old and New Quilt Patterns in the Southern Tradition by Bets Ramsey, a local quilter. She showed how scraps, "strings", were saved and sewn onto paper foundations. I loved the idea of using even the smallest scraps.

I like to use a unifying color somewhere in my scrap quilts and chose bright turquoise for this one. Sew your fabric to the paper with a small stitch and press the seams each time. When you've filled the paper turn it over, cut around the paper edge for your block, and finally pull the paper along the perforations to remove it. You can do crazy quilt blocks this way too. I have and it's fun--even the tiny scraps get used. For a challenge use diamond shaped paper and make string stars.

As Mrs. Ramsey says in her book, "For economy and practicality, Southern quiltmakers have produced hundreds of string quilts in a variety of patterns." Economical, practical...I like everything about it.