Sew Special and Reuse Recipe: The Ugly Quilt 2013

Last week I posted about wanting to use up all of my scrappy bits of fabric before the end of the year. Here is what I did with the rest of the scraps.

the Ugly Quilt 2013

I think that I will make a yearly tradition of this - test out a new quilting method with a quilt made of all the last year's scraps. I am lovingly referring to it as "the Ugly Quilt" since the fabric choices are completely based on what I had in the scrap bag. If I was just a quilter, I could see it still turning out beautiful, but since there are fabrics from pjs, curtains, skirts, pillow cases, etc all mixed together it's wild.  I like it though. It will be perfect for keeping in the car - like my favorite blogger does. That way we will have it on hand for picnics at the nature center, grassy soccer fields, and snuggling under while the car warms up.

I have never done paper piecing before. It was fun and oddly liberating. I could sew any size strips to the paper in any order and it was just fine.

Here is how to make the 2013 Ugly Quilt:
1. Trace around a 12 x 12" square of scrapbooking card stock on to a lighter weight paper - I used my roll of medical exam paper. I made 36 of these squares.

2. Cut them out with a ruler and rotary cutter, if you have them, or scissors if not.
3. Draw a diagonal line across the middle
4. The frame fabric. Choose a fabric that you have a large scrap piece of or a lot of scrap strips of. That will be the one uniform part of this quilt. On mine it was white denim leftover from the armchair slipcovers. I recommend making this at least 2 " wide since it is really the only unifying factor in the ugly quilt.
5. The wild colors. Take all the other fabrics from your scrap bag and cut them into strips. Mine varied in width from 1.5" to 2.5" wide.
6. Center a strip of the frame fabric right side up along the diagonal line and pin. There should be about 1/2" extra at either end. I trimmed off excess so that the long tail would not be too cumbersome.

7. Lay the first wild color fabric right sides together on top of the frame fabric. Sew 1/4 inch seam. Open and finger press. Trim the tail.
8. Lay the next wild fabric right sides together on top of the first. Sew 1/4" seam. Open. Finger press. Trim tail. Repeat this step until you reach the far corner. Then do the same thing on the other half.
9. Iron all 36 squares.
10. Use a quilting ruler and rotary cutter to trim the little tails back to the edge of the paper - making a perfect square. I love this step, since it is so easy to make a perfect square with the paper backing in place.

11. Then you can rip the paper backing off the squares and arrange them into your very own ugly quilt.