A Tale of Three Quilts, Part Two: A Mile of Scraps

As I had mentioned in Part One, I overcut the block sashings and the outer border like it was my JOB. I wonder why this occured, but again, cutting is just too fun.

This segment of the saga focuses on the what-seemed-like-miles extras from the 5 inch outside border. I believe that I measured it at one point and the extra was something like 20 yards or more. Which is even more ridiculous when you realize that the extra is more than the original quilt would have required for the border. Sigh.

So this extra (unlike all of the loose four inch pieces that I will talk about in Part Three) was all sewed together in a very long strip (hence why I measured it). I wrapped it around an empty tissue tube and it was about the size of a full roll when it was all wound.

All this scrap occupied its own basket in my mom's sewing room until last summer. Getting ready to move to Pennsylvania to start graduate school, I was mulling over the idea of making a new blanket to take with me. All of my other quilts (the original quilt and my teacup quilt--coming soon) were all full/queen sized, and my (free!) bed was twin sized. I had my quilt from undergrad (also coming soon), but I wanted something a little more "grown-up" than a tee-shirt quilt.

Not really searching for a pattern, I saw this Coin Collecting Pattern in Quiltmaker. This was exactly what all those scraps were waiting for. I cut my giant roll into pieces and found a pale green and white fabric to use for the setting pieces. The picture shows the pattern as a throw, and to make mine twin sized I just added an extra row of blocks on the side and bottom (or top, if that's how you want to think about it). And voila!

It reminds me of a weaving with the strips looking like they are going in front of and behind one another. Here is a few close up of the blocks:

This picture also shows the pantogram machine quilting of Ivy Leaves. My mom also made me two pillow cases to match:

This was a really easy pattern and I would definitely recommend it as a first project. The blocks are large, no intricate seams to match up, and a great way to use up scraps. I would do it again, but I might change up the sizing of the blocks/strips so its not exactly the same.

Did I use up all of the roll of border scrap? Not quite.

I have a few feet left. Hopefully I can use it up with the rest of the sashing scraps--a work in progress--coming in Part Three!

Do you have any "go-to" scrap patterns? Have you ever ended up with a situation like mine with too much of the same color scheme?