How to Pick Fabric for a Scrap Quilt

The following blog post is on how I pull fabric for a scrap quilt and my personal process. There is not a wrong way to make a scrap quilt. Some quilters suggest you literally use all of your scraps to get a truly scrappy look. This is just my method. Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, let’s get to it.

Confidence Level & Pattern Choice

How confident are you with making a scrap quilt? This question should be asked when choosing a scrap quilt pattern.

If you are not very confident pulling fabric, I would choose a pattern with background fabric in it. Background fabric is a really easy way to break up your scraps. The less scraps that touch each other, the harder it is to ‘mess up’ a scrap quilt. Below is an example of a quilt pattern that would be a good choice for someone who is nervous about making a scrap quilt. Do you see how all the white background fabric really breaks up the scraps?

Hexie Spectrum Quilt pattern by me. Available for purchase here.

Below is an example of someone with a moderate amount of scrap confidence. There is background fabric involved, but I broke up the scrap triangles by using white and gold metallic FQs for the hexagons. This makes the entire quilt look like it is made using entirely scraps, but the use of coordinating FQs for the hexagons makes it a LOT easier to plan out.

Gondor Quilt pattern by me. Available for purchase here.

Below is an example of a scrap quilt that could be chosen by someone with a lot of scrap confidence. The entire quilt is made of scraps, there are few repeating fabrics, there is no real background fabric, the fabrics all touch each other, there is no defined color scheme.

Hexie Flower SAL quilt by me.

Obviously you can choose whatever pattern you want to make a scrap quilt, but hopefully this helps you understand how big of a scrap commitment you are potentially getting yourself into.

Easy Ways to get Cohesion

Easy ‘cheat’ ways to get cohesion:

• Use all the same designer (the same designer’s fabric usually works well together)
• Use fabric from the same company (all Ruby Star Society scraps)

These examples really only work well for someone who uses mostly one type of fabric &/or has a lot of scraps.

Make a Plan

I cannot stress this enough – have some sort of plan for your scrap quilt and make sure your scraps support that plan (i.e. you can’t do a Heather Ross scrap quilt if you have no Heather Ross scraps). It doesn’t need to be a specific plan necessarily, just a general color scheme plan. Here are some examples:

• Rainbow
• Ombre
• Jewel tones
• Pastels
• Bright
• Earth tones
• Two colors (ex. blue and green)
• Solids
• Specific designer
• Specific fabric manufacturer

Once you have a pattern and a fabric plan, you can start pulling scraps.

Pulling Scraps

Pull all the fabric the scraps that you think will work with your theme. Literally all of the scraps. Put them in a big pile and then spread them out. Think of it like a scrap buffet. Then once you have everything laid out, start pulling fabrics that do not work with everything else.

What ‘doesn’t work’ is different for everyone. Some people like really consistent colors or values, I generally like more visual interest and variance in my scrap quilts. I think that having a few scraps that push the envelope a little is what makes the scrap quilt actually look like a scrap quilt.

This is where the scrap quilt starts to get more complicated and there are two things that really help you know what to keep in your pile and what to throw out: undertones and balance.

Undertones

Fabrics and colors have undertones. A piece of blue fabric can have a grey undertone or a piece of pink fabric can have a purple undertone, etc. This is what often what accounts for the gut feeling ‘this just doesn’t look right’. A scrap being blue doesn’t mean that it automatically works with all your blue scraps because the undertone could cause it to clash or stand out in a bad way. One of the easiest ways to work around this is to go with a color scheme that is something along the lines of: jewel tones, earth tones, brights or pastels. Undertones rarely clash when you go within one of those categories.

My biggest piece of advice here is to trust your gut. If you keep looking at that one pink scrap and feel like it doesn’t work, it probably doesn’t work.

Balance

Scrap quilts need balance. Balance is so important. Balance is what makes the quilt really look cohesive while having visual interest. What do I mean by balance?

You don’t want one really bright scrap or one really dark. Or one bright purple or one random blue one. You want a few of everything you are using. If you only have one black scrap, maybe don’t use it. If you have some low volume and some higher volume scraps, you are going to want to balance that out – close to equal amounts of both volumes.

Example One – Scrappy Gondor Quilt

I went with jewel tone scrap triangles and hexagons in gold FQs for this quilt. I laid out the hexagons first. I made sure to have balance – I spread out high and low volume designs & curvy and straight motifs.

I grabbed a BIG pile of jewel tone scraps. Here is a picture of part of the pile at the beginning of the planning process. Most of these fabrics made it into the quilt, but not all. I ultimately decided that I didn’t want yellow in the quilt and that the sage fabric (flowers and squirrels) didn’t flow with the rest of the quilt (undertones).

If you can, lay it out and cut scraps as you go. I unfortunately do not have progress shots, but I grabbed some scraps and cut triangles, then I evenly laid them out. Then I went back for more scraps. I stepped back continuously and asked myself what do I need now? If something pops out at you in a bad way, take it out or add more of it. At various points black, brighter purple, and green popped out – so I just added more scraps in that color from a different fabric. The different fabric is really key here. Having slight variance in the color, volume, and undertone is what is going to help the other fabric blend in better.

Once I was happy with it, I just sewed it all together!

Example Two – Hexie Spectrum Quilt

My Hexie Spectrum Quilt involved EPP so I couldn’t just leave it on the design board until I was finished with it. I used solid white for the background and center hexies, this is a really easy way to calm down a quilt and simplify scra choices. The theme was bright rainbow so I pulled all of the scraps that fit that description. I sorted them by color and laid each color stack next to each other. I pulled all the fabrics that I thought did not work and put them back in the scrap bin. (I unfortunately do not have a picture of this process.) I put all the scraps I was going to potentially use for my project in a bag together so they wouldn’t accidently get used for something else.

I started with red and worked my way through the rainbow. After I finished a color, I returned the unused scraps to the original scrap bin. I kept the bag of pulled rainbow scraps throughout the whole project.

Because I couldn’t lay out the project and cut the scraps all at once like with the Gondor Quilt, it was really important that I continually checked on the cohesion. Here is an example of this below. I was checking that the blue and green scraps still worked after I had made pink, red, orange, yellow, and purple blocks. It was actually at this point that I pulled the dark green fabric with the pink flowers out. It was a little too dark for the project.

I just kept checking the quilt for balance and cohesion the whole time and eventually I was done!

In Conclusion

• Pick a scrap quilt pattern that matches or is below your scrap confidence level
• If you are nervous about scrap quilting, use something with a background fabric
  • Maybe use solid white for that background
• If you want to look scrappier than you actually are, use a FQ bundle that coordinates for background fabric (cheat code)
• Make a fabric plan
• Watch for weird undertones in your scraps that do not work with everything else
• BALANCE your fabric choices
• As you are making the scrap quilt, continuously lay it out and check cohesion

I hope this helps y’all reach your scrap quilt potential with as little pain and as much confidence as possible!