I’d like to say I’m a model of careful management of the excess in our life whether it’s  week old vegetables or the recycling or repurposing of items at home that have seen better days but of course I can’t. Whilst I’m not truly dire there  is a lot of room for improvement particularly in the amount of food wasted which ends up in the wormeries or our compost heaps. But on the plus side we have so much recycling our council have given us an extra massive recycling bin – I’m the envy of my friends!! But when it comes to fabric I like to think I’m on the good side of waste not want not. And this quilt is proof….

The quilt (if you discount the backing) is made I reckon with virtually 85 -90% of  scraps left over from quilts I had made previously from yardage. Even the batting is pieced from a number  of left over pieces of batting all of  roughly  the same loft. And of course there’s a scrappy binding from numerous blue strips.

When it comes to scraps I keep them in glass jars which are more or less sorted by colour. The rope bowls gather the scraps which are then every so often sorted into the jars. The scraps in these bowls all went into those jars – they are surprisingly spacious if you squash the fabric down.

When these jars get over stuffed I get quite edgy and determined to find a way to utilise their contents. This scrappy block was one recent attempt to conquer awkward sized pieces and worked very well.

For this drunkards path quilt the start place was the my over stuffed white/cream jars. I like scrap quilts to be controlled with plenty of negative space to rest the eye. But by definition these white/neutral fabrics were  varied but crucially they read as a neutral background. So I randomly pieced two then three pieces together  and then kept adding to get a piece large enough to cut a drunkards path block. It took a surprising amount of scraps to make sufficient.

Whilst time consuming I loved the scrappy finish of these blocks. Certainly worth the effort and 2 very stuffed jars were emptied. Using my accuquilt was a huge bonus.

Now  for the drunkard path ‘pie’ filling. Again I wanted it to be from scraps but wanted the colours to be controlled and not completely random. I had a fair bit of blue and pink larger sized scraps from which with careful cutting I could get 3 – 4 pie shaped pieces. But there were still not enough.

 

One of the reasons for being so particular about using scraps was this was for a scrap challenge run  by Kim of Persimmon Dreams. The rules were quite specific, minimum 80% from scraps defined as pieces less than a fat quarter. So as I wanted to stick to the rules I had to wait to use some of my stash so I’d be left with pieces of the right size. I even put in some old denim and a shirt destined for the charity bin. But the deadline of  3 November was looming but I’ve made it!

The design came about playing with ideas but I wanted to break away from the traditional drunkard path circle. I wanted bright and modern but when it came to quilting I decided the busy design favoured simpler quilting. As a general rule if the design’s curvy I go for straight lines and vice versa. But this time I wanted an all over crinkly effect so went with a curvy stitch. As it’s destined for a child through the Siblings Together charity I wanted it to be nice and soft.

 

I’m being very brave here showing my reverse side. It always looks a complete dog’s breakfast because I’m never consistent with ironing seams  but of course normally it’s mercifully completely hidden from view. But the picture better  shows the multiple pieces of the neutral background. The very sharped eyed may notice that this top is smaller than the finished quilt,  it just might be because Skye looked so sweet asleep I couldn’t quite bring myself to move her as I sewed the top together.

This is my second Q4 FAL finish against my original target list here   It was also my also  one monthly goal for Heidi over at Ted Letter Quilts.

linking up with Nicky and Leanne at Scraptastic Tuesday and Amanda Jean at  Crazy Mom Quilts