Turning Those Smaller Quilt Scraps Into Scrap Quilts

Do you have an over abundance of fabric scraps? Have you thrown out the small ones because it’s a hassle to cut them down into a useable square? Do you hate to waste fabric? Today I would like to share with you one of the ways I’m turning my smaller scraps into 1 1/2 inch squares for a scrap quilt.

Here’s my box of leftover scraps from several of my other projects, my AccuQuilt Go Big, my GO! Square-1 1/2″ (1″ Finished) Die (#55470), GO! Strip Cutter 1 1/2″ (1″ Finished) 5 Strips Die (#55024) and my cutting mats for each of my dies.

A while back, I ran across a picture of a nine-patch scrap quilt that sparked my interest and gave me the idea for cutting my scraps.

I keep my picture, fabrics and completed blocks in this very fancy shoebox. (I have a couple other started projects stacked underneath my long-arm as well.)

I don’t work on these blocks for long and only when I feel like it as working with such small squares is tedious and I prefer to work on this in short time spans.

I started out laying some of my longer scrap stripes out on the 1 1/2 inch strip die so I could clean them up and cut to the correct size.

Once I have all my longer scraps cut to the correct length, I flip them across the die (blades) to cut them into the many 1 1/2 squares. The strip die works very well as I can lay up to 6 layers on each strip as well as run them from top to bottom on the die.

Here I am rubbing my hand across the mat before sliding it off (slide don’t lift) the fabric. Rubbing the mat helps remove some of the static created from running the mat through the machine.

If you don’t have the strip die, you can use the multiple 1 1/2 square die to cut your squares. I like to use this one when the scraps are even smaller.

If I tried to cut all this fabric with my rulers and rotary cutter it would take me a good part of my morning. Using my cutter and dies makes the task go much quicker. I wrote about using this a while back in my post A Fabric Scraps Sorting Sunday.

I managed to cut all these in less than a half hour. This still gives me time to sew up a few nine patches to add to my collection.

It will be a while before I get all the squares I need and I will also have to cut and sew several 1/2 square triangles for my quilt.

I added 5 more patches to my collection, along with several more squares to sew. I put everything neatly into my shoebox and stacked it back with the rest.

I hope this inspires you to cut your fabric scraps into useable squares. Scrap quilts are a wonderful way to use your scraps up.

Until next time . . .

Blessings,