Scrap Dilema

I'm sure a lot of us have discovered that Pinterest is a wonderful and dangerous thing.  For instance a few nights ago, I was tired (being almost 8 months pregnant will do that to you) and I decided to browse pinterest for some quilt ideas.  Since discovering basting spray and how it takes my least favorite part of quilting and makes it manageable, I've fallen in love with quilting all over again.  (You can see all the quilting goodness I've been pinning here.)

Anyway...I came across this quilt.

Connect the Dots Baby Boy Puzzle Quilt - Pattern available from eQuiltPatterns.com

I loved it...and then started thinking about how I would do it differently to make it look more like a real puzzle...and how I would avoid all of the piecing involved. 

And then I just had to try it...Here's a sneak peak at my version...



...and now I've got a baby quilt all finished and ready for our baby boy when he comes...now if we could only settle down and choose a name...

Anyway...I digress...

Any quilt or fabric project leaves you with a lot of scraps.  I especially hate throwing out scraps of pretty quilt fabric.  I read something a while ago that got me thinking though.  (Sorry I can't remember the link.)  Basically it suggested to have a project in mind for all those scraps.  Then if you cut your scraps up as you generate them, it's more manageable than doing a scrap quilt all at once.  So I'm thinking I want to have an ongoing scrap quilt project going.  Something where I can sew the scraps from a given project into a set size square or rectangle or something.  After all, the scraps from any given project, usually coordinate together to some degree and should make decent blocks, right?  Then when I have enough blocks I can sew them into a cohesive quilt.

The problem is that I have to decide on a size for the blocks.  The bigger the blocks, the bigger the scraps have to be and the smaller scraps get left out.  On the other hand, the smaller the scraps are the more time it takes to sew them and instead of losing little bits of pretty fabric...I'm losing large chunks of my life.

And of course there is the difficulty that there are just so many great scrap quilts to choose from.  Should I start a couple projects to use different kinds of scraps?  Or just stick to one?

And instead of just making up my mind and getting to work on a couple of blocks to use up the scraps that are hanging around from my latest quilting binge...I decided to write a blog post about it.

Here are a few I'm thinking of...which one is your favorite?

Vintage Pillowcase Scrap Quilt from Really Quite Simple

Love the easy design.  Even though the pieces are small, they'd be fast sew together in long rows. 

Scrappy Stripes Quilt from A Little Bit of Me

I love the simplicity of this one...but of course your scraps have to be a bit long.

Scrap Buster Quilt Top from Red Pepper Quilts

I like that I could sew coordinating fabric strips into blocks that could be arranged later according to color.  I like how the uniform white rectangles make a cohesive pattern through the whole quilt.

And a similar variation...

Mini Scrap Quilt image via Pinterest

I'm thinking one common factor here is that I need to get some white (or grey) fabric to break things up...which is also part of the reason I haven't started on the scrap quilt.  Despite all the fabric in my stash, I don't think I have a good solid white quilt weight fabric.

How do you generally solve your scrap dilema?  Do you throw them away or use them for something else?

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