Pink Scraps

Borders, Sashing and Cornerstones

For the Rainbow Scrap Challenge I thought I would sew pink sashing and borders on a (you guessed it) Mile a Minute Quilt that’s been sitting on the shelf.  This took me much longer than I thought it would, I sewed all Friday evening and then much of Saturday and still had some sashing to sew!  Maybe I’m just slow?  The pink fabric for the sashing, cornerstones and borders are fabric scraps with a story… I was working in the Quilt shop one day and a lady came in with a bag of fabric scraps left over from a quilt she had made, she wanted to know if someone could use it.  We tried to convince her to keep it for a future project however she was not interested, so I decided to give it a good home and here it is.  I still have to sew the bright pink border on.

Quilt Sashing – What is sashing?  Think of your quilt blocks as pictures, a block can be enhanced by the use of a frame and that is what sashing is, the strips of fabric that go between the blocks and act as a frame.  Sashing may also separate busy blocks, or help to co-ordinate or accent a quilt with a unifying colour.  Sashing can be very simple or have a very intricate pattern of it own.

Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing?  Can one really explain this?  No.  ~Pablo Picasso

Tuesday Tutorials (or Tips) – Mile a Minute

Mile a Minute 62" x 82"

Okay, here is my hope; I would like to post an ongoing Tuesday Tutorial (or Tips).  I am going to start with the Mile a Minute Quilt.  I have made a couple of Mile a Minute Quilts and people always respond so enthusiastically to them.  As you can see this one is bright and fun.  I have also been asked again and again in classes that I teach “Should I save my fabric scraps?” or “How little does a fabric scrap have to be to be worth saving?” 

Fabric Scraps

I save everything bigger than one inch and toss it into a drawer, if I can’t close the drawer it’s time to start another Mile a Minute.  My students are always asking me to teach Mile a Minute; however it’s not really a good class for the Quilt Shop as it doesn’t sell a lot of fabric.

 

So let’s begin.

From your scraps gather 80 small scraps no less than one inch ‘sort of square’ and not greater than two inches.  

80 small scraps

 

Now take a bunch of your other scraps and put them in a large paper bag, these can be all shapes and sizes larger than one inch.  If you have large pieces you want to use cut them into strips between one and two and a half inches wide before putting them in the bag.  Don’t worry about the strips being even and straight, in fact wonky is good.  I find the strips left over from truing your fabric or the extra trimmed from the back of a quilt after layering and quilting are excellent for this project. 

  

Bag of Scraps

 

So until next Tuesday’s Tutorial, have fun gathering your 80 little squares and your bag of scraps.  Our finished quilts will should fit a twin size bed and measure approximately 82 x 62 inches.