Patching together the random pieces

Awhile ago I talked about reducing waste, and how I thought it might be better to eliminate scraps altogether than to save all my scraps for later use. So, I have successfully redesigned several Lil Hipsters projects to have almost no waste.

Well, that was great. But... I still had a large pile of scrap fabric that I had accumulated over the past two years. It was getting large enough to become its own entity. And it was kind of an annoying one at that. So I was pretty anxious to get rid of it. Even though I had much more exciting ideas on my to-do list, I decided to tackle this one to reclaim some space. I toyed with several ideas on how to use them, but in the end the simplest and most effective idea seemed to be to make patchwork quilts. So, for the past three months, I have been chipping away at this pile of scrap fabric.

Have you ever had a large project that, halfway through you start to wonder "Why did I ever start this?" or "Will I EVER finish?" That was me with these quilts. But I'm kinda like that about life in general. I always have more than enough on my plate and always seem to be behind or at least not as far along as I'd like to be. Always something, several things, on my To-Do. I'm an avid list-maker. Sometimes Joel teases me about my lists. I've even been known to have a list of lists! But when I have so much to keep track of, it's more of a survival thing for me. I wouldn't know how else to be productive. Actually, this quilt project has an interesting parallel. I have all these random pieces to sew together into a comprehensive whole. I take one bold fabric, that might be my mommy to-dos. I pull it in with my homemaker stuff and family stuff and business owner stuff... Sew it all together. Viola. The quilt of My Life.

...I wonder if I'll ever catch up with myself. Wouldn't that be great! Or maybe I'll still have lists when I'm old and grey. Sometimes I jokingly think, 'I'll probably have a to-do list when Jesus comes back' :) Or when I'm gone- what will be left undone? Not that I'll really care at that point. Just a matter of pure curiosity... it seems a silly thing to ponder, but it might also help me keep some perspective...

Back to the quilts:

This is the pile of scraps I had. I laid them out on the kitchen table to get an idea of how to arrange them, coordinate them, who should marry whom and so forth.

Most of the scraps were about 3 to 5 inches wide.The biggest problem was that there was quite a wide variety of patterns and colors that didn't necessarily go together. So I had to get kind of creative with color schemes and quilt sizes.

It was like a huge, cruel puzzle. Ahh, c'est la vie. I guess it's a good thing I like puzzles. :)

Maybe in a future post, I'll share one of my quilt patterns in detail. For now, I will just show you a few of the finished products. All these are backed with uber-soft minky, which was acquired specifically for this project. But the patchwork tops are made with 100% salvaged fabric which most people throw away.

 My auntie owns a business and sews patient gowns. These quilts have some of her scraps, too:

You can find more info about these in the new Eco Quilt section of my etsy shop!

That's all for now. Today is Sunday, so I plan to relax and take a break from all this quilting. Actual and metaphorical. ;) Thanks for letting me share with you!