I love scrap quilts! Each one is special and totally unique. Here are some tips for planning a scrappy sampler quilt like Pas de Deux.

Start with Your Scraps

What do you have? Get to know your scraps to discover the possibilities. If your scraps aren’t sorted by color, start with that task. Get everything out and sort scraps into piles: red, pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, gray, brown, black, white.

If some of those piles are still rather big, fine-tune using other color differences that stand out to you. For example, separate peach from pink or separate teal from blue.

Are your scraps already sorted by color? Well, I’m guessing you probably have a big scrap collection. Y’all know that I do! That means you have lots of choices, which can be overwhelming. You might want to do some further sorting in order to make more focused color piles.

My biggest scrap category tends to be blue, so I sorted my blues into finer designations. In ended up with lots of kinds of “blue” with piles of various richness and size.

Coordinate Colors

What’s the purpose of all this sorting? It’s to see what you have and to help you make specific plans. The Pas de Deux sampler is made up of two-color pairings. What scrap piles would be fun together?

If you have a small scrap collection, you might think in term of “blue and pink” for a block in your sampler quilt. If you have a large scrap collection with finer color designations, you might think in terms of “dark blue and bubblegum pink” for a block in your sampler quilt.

For example, with this combo I was thinking sea foam green and limey-grass green. I happen to have a lot of both of these colors.

It’s not cheating to also allow yardage to play a roll. Looking at piles of scraps can be visually confusing. You can choose a fabric from your stash to represent each available scrap pile. Mixing and matching a representative folded fabric, will be easier than juggling scraps! Plus, you can use yardage as needed for bigger pieces in the quilt, combined with scraps. In my opinion, that’s still a scrap quilt!

Help, Total Overwhelm!

If everything about scrap sorting makes you crazy (but you still want to make a scrap quilt, haha), just use yardage or color chips to establish your color themes. Then, when you’re pleased with your plans, see what scraps you have to go along with your ideas. Don’t be afraid to allow those ideas to broaden! A healthy dose of the unexpected is what makes scrap quilts magical.

p.s. you can also buy scraps to go with your ideas ;)

Develop a Theme

Sometimes scrap quilts involve absolutely no planning whatsoever, but more often I do put thought into what colors I use. My scrap quilts often have a theme like “jewel tones,” “bright colors + black” or “everything but purple.”

This Economy Star Parade scrap quilt has the theme bright colors and black. It looks so focused, yet was sewn by ten different quilters, each using her own scraps!

A theme gives a scrap quilt a subtle unity that can make the difference between lively and chaotic. Especially when sewing a scrappy sampler quilt, which has visual complexity already built into the pattern, it’s good to have a sense of direction.

Use a Color Sheet

Ok, so you’ve chosen some favorite colors (after consulting your scraps), made a few color pairings that delight and have begun to develop a theme for your project. Congrats! It might be nice to translate your ideas into something more tangible with a Color Sheet.

The Pas de Deux sampler quilt includes a blank color sheet. If you’re feeling inspired, use colored pencils to color in the sheet with your ideas all at once. This can be a great way to save your current level of inspirational insight. You’ll appreciate tapping into that later on, when you’re feeling less inspired.

But you don’t have to color in the sheet in advance. Another way to use it is as a record of your progress. Color each patchwork group after sewing it. In this way, the color sheet allows you to see how all the already-sewn elements are working together at a glance.

That looks to be the approach of Steffi @Quiltwerke, who sewed a beautiful Still Point patchwork group for Pas de Deux, as one of my wonderful testers. What a lovely start!

Ok, friends, I hope this gives you some fresh ideas as you begin to sew your scrappy sampler quilt. If I haven’t touched on your personal friction point, let me know where you get stuck. I’d love to see if I can help!

xoxo,

Rachel