1600 Quilt Made With Scraps

In 2013 I published a post about cutting 2.5" strips and sewing them together to make a scrappy strip quilt.  Find that post HERE.

I made 3 different quilts from the strips over the years, but most of them were stashed away in my sewing room in bags and tubs.  A few days ago, I decided I needed to go through my rather small quilt stash and organize the fabrics.  I found the strips again and I decided I needed to get rid of them. I called my daughter, who is the director of the Long Term Care Unit in our local hospital, and asked her if she needed any quilts for her residents.  She said she would love some.  Since I have someone expecting a finished product, it is likely I will get them done.  

My scrap lengths measure from 2.5 inches to  44 inches.  I need (40) - 42 inch strips to equal 1680" with is the length of the strips, end to end, of a jelly roll.  I also have to consider seam allowance for the strips because there will be lots of them.  

I wanted each quilt to be about the size of a quilt sewn together from a jelly roll so I set up a measuring tape, a note pad and pencil on my ironing table.  Next I put the strips next to the tape to equal the length of 22".  Next I set more strips on top of the first to equal a measurement of 22".  I now had strips that equaled 44 inches.  For each set of strips that measure 44", I put a tally on my notepad.  Some strips were already 44 inches so I cut them in half and tallied 1 on my note pad.  Some strips were already 22 inches, so I stacked two next to the measuring tape, put another tally mark on the note pad and set them on the pile.  For the rest of the strips, I lay them end to end next to the tape until they equaled 22 inches and then lay another group of strips end to end on top of the first until they equaled 22 inches, and marked a tally on the note pad. Every strip set that went on the pile was tallied, until the tallies added up to 40.  

I did this with all of my strips and came up with 9 bags of strips ready to be sewn together into a 1600 quilt.

Many of the strips had jagged edges or salvage edges, so I kept my little rotary cutter, ruler and mat next to my pile.

This is a pile of fabric strips that will be about 1680 inches long when the strips are sewn together end to end.

After sewing the scraps end to end,  I cut the threads and pressed the seams.  

Here is one finished quilt top.  I used strips from the blue bag to do this one.  There are fabrics in here from projects I've done over the last 4 decades.  I had a fun little walk down memory lane when I put this together.  I have one more bag of blue strips.  I have a green bag, a brown bag, a black bag, two pink-orange-red bags, and a brown and green bag.   I hope to eventually have a post with the finished quilts...fingers crossed!

I have found that keeping a bag next to my machine is really handy.  I can use the strips as leaders and enders.  I can work on it if I have a couple of spare minutes.  Since they are bagged up and ready to sew, I can easily work on them whenever I have some time. 

 This was the view from my window while I was working on the quilt.  My sewing machine is set up   in front of this window.  The Alaska Marine Highway ship, Malaspina was heading South.

These twins have been fun to watch this summer.  I think they must live in the forest next to my house.

Linking to
Can I Get A Whoop, Whoop, Oh Scrap, Crazy Mom Quilts, Monday Making, Linky Tuesday, Midweek Makers