Thursday, April 01, 2010

Frugal Quilting - Binding from Scraps

Have you ever noticed that binding is one of those things that just never comes out even? For every project I complete I almost always have a length of binding left over. Sometimes it's only a few inches, but often it can be much more. For the past year I have been collecting my leftover binding pieces in a shoe box along with other small scraps. My box has recently started to overflow with bits and pieces so I decided it was time to sew the binding scraps together to make a lenght of binding ready for scrap quilts.

I sewed the strips together using a diagonal seam to join the strips and ended up with a very long piece of binding. After pressing all the seams open and making sure my fabric was nice and smooth with a good fold in the center I rolled it all up around a small notebook. This will allow me to place the roll around my wrist as I sew the binding on, keeping it clean and untangled! I think this roll will bind at least two queen size quilts. Pretty good for just using pieces leftover from other projects!

For this set of strips I sewed them together in an "anything goes" kind of a way, but I think I might try saving my bits in a different way next round. I could do a bag of pastels, a bag of earth tones and a bag of brights. That way I would have some more coordinated binding sets. It also might be a nice idea to sew them together as I gather them. Though it did only take me an hour to sew all my bits together and press them. Either way, it's lovely to have some pre-made binding at my disposal for various projects.

Scrappy binding is a great way to save money - to bind a queen size quilt I would buy at least 3/4 of a yard of fabric, so this lenth of binding saved me about $15.00 at current quilt shop prices, and it will look great around the string quilt blocks I am working on. Let me know if you try this - and I'd love to see pictures of quilts with scrappy bindings!




And - my new listing for the day - Pastel Floral Checkbook Cover and Wallet

Have a wonderful Easter weekend. A friend summed it up well. The saddest day ever on earth came 3 days before the happiest one.

2 comments:

Attack of the Vintage said...

Great idea! I love saving my scraps for use in a creative way, sometimes more creative than the original use of the fabric.

Terry Aske Art Quilts said...

Great idea. I cannot bear to throw out scraps, so I save them in big zippered plastic bags, sorted by color. I use them when I need small pieces, and to remind myself what fabrics I have in specific colors. Now I have a new use for my scraps. Thanks for the idea.