My patchwork scrap quilt is finished! This is the most time intensive quilt I’ve made to date (so many squares!) and includes scraps from the past eight years of sewing. It was a serious labor of love, and I considered chucking the whole thing out the window three or four times before it was finished.

I didn’t want to use strip piecing because I was hoping for a more random arrangement of squares, so each square was individually cut and painstakingly arranged (I always overthink that part!) I sewed the front blocks together using interfacing, which I had read was a shortcut for piecing small squares. It ended up being a major pain and if I were to redo the quilt I think I’d skip it the next time around. The back piecing was done without interfacing and I feel like it went more quickly while still being just as accurate.

The fabrics I used are not only quilting scraps but scraps from dresses I made for my girls as toddlers and the overalls I made for my son’s first Easter. There are scraps from bags and baby blankets and Christmas gifts… when I look at this quilt I am flooded with memories of all of the things I’ve made, which is a pretty great feeling. I also got the added bonus of majorly cleaning out my fabric cabinet. I cut all of the remaining scraps down into manageable and regularly shaped pieces and folded them neatly, and tossed all the tiny pieces. It’s nice to finally feel like I’m not drowning in fabric (for the moment).

The quilt is backed in a super soft double gauze cloud 9 cotton with a strip of pieced squares down the middle. I love how soft it is, but it did wrinkle a little bit underneath while I was quilting it together so it’s a little wonky. As is everything I make. I think the softness makes up for the imperfections. It’s bound in a crazy patterned bias binding that I made… I figured the total lack of cohesion in the fabric patterns called for something extra outrageous as binding.

Hooray for finished quilts, hooray for using up years worth of scraps! It’s my new favorite blanket.