The craft of quilting has become something totally different from its origins. Today the majority of quilters follow a commercial pattern, purchase yardages of multiple fabrics, cut them apart with rotary cutters and then sew them back together using “factory assembly line methods” (chain piecing) and computerized sewing machines. These beautiful quilts are not only functional, but works of art in their own right.

What a far cry from the era of our great-great-grandmothers and further back in time. Back then any scrap of fabric left over from sewing their own and their family's garments would be put in the scrap bin to be used later for the very utilitarian quilts that were made strictly for warmth during harsh winters. And to think that sometimes they were made completely by hand in candlelight!

Cottons would be mixed with wools, feed sacks were often used and some scraps were so small that some of the shaped patches were made of multiple scraps...every piece was used and nothing was wasted. Next time you get the opportunity to examine an antique quilt look closely at the mix of fabrics and the pieced together patches in the name of frugality.

I am definitely not that thrifty. I do admit to patching the patches if I've run out of one particular fabric, but it rarely happens because so much fabric is at our disposal. There is always enough coordinating fabric left over from my specific projects that I'm able to make a smaller quilt for our guild's charity program or a few placemats for Meals on Wheels.

My friends, Marg and Becky, make a lot of scrappy quilts using 2” squares so they get anything I have left over that meets their size requirements. Occasionally I work on foundation paper-pieced miniature quilts and any of my particularly yummy fabric scraps are saved for those.

Since being stuck at home so much over the last couple of months I’ve been reacquainting myself with my stash of quilt magazines. This one caught my eye on the newsstand in 2015 because of the pinwheel style quilt on the front cover. It was so graphic and fresh looking that I knew it would work well with my stash of brightly coloured fabrics.

I quickly realized as I was cutting it out that there would be a lot of waste at the pinwheel points that could easily be worked into a great design for a secondary quilt. So instead of it making its way into the scrap bin I planned the second small quilt as I stitched the first.

Each strip pieced unit measured 4 1/2” x 8 1/2” with a 4 1/2” square at one end used to create the background (white) and pinwheel point (purple & orange). Once the diagonal seam was stitched I noticed that the whole other side of the square would have been wasted.

A new stitching line was drawn 1/2” away from the first line of stitching to accommodate the seam allowances of both pieces. Once stitched they were then cut apart to create 2 units.

Seams were pressed to the coloured sides so there would be no shadowing on the white and instead of just one unit we now have 2...no waste.

They aren't quilted yet, but both quilts are so fresh and pretty. The larger one is a large lap size and the smaller one is a very small baby quilt. It could have been made larger with borders or other pieced designs, but it's just the right size as it is for one of TSQG's charity programs.

This next idea comes from Diane and Doreen who run our annual September quilt retreat at Elim Lodge. They taped bags to the edge of each cutting table to gather up any trimmed edges of fabric and scraps of batting. They then filled old pillowcases with what was gathered, stitched the ends closed and donated the scrap “mattresses” to animal shelters for dog beds. How ingenious is that?! Something very useful was made from the castoffs and it didn't end up in landfill.

I have gotten in the habit of doing this myself. There's a container under my cutting table that all my trimmed edges, small bits of batting and teeny tiny scraps go into. When it's full the contents get dumped into an old pillowcase, and when the pillowcase is full the end gets stitched up. There is a doggy day care in my area that is happy to receive them.

Of course, there are countless ways to use up even the smallest of scraps and many books are on the market that help quilters figure out what to do with them...quilts using selvedge edges, string quilts, miniatures, quilt-as-you-go...the possiblilities are endless. And I don't know of any quilter who never has any scraps!

Don't Waste Anything!