Cutting Your Feature Fabrics - Scrap Quilt Edition
Cutting from scraps can be a little bit messy. If you are like me, your scraps are wrinkled up and stuff into bins. There are loose threads. There are lots of pieces that will be too small for your project. It takes a little more time to cut your fabric from scraps than it will from a fat quarter bundle or a jelly roll.
Here are a few tips that should help you cut your pieces for your scrappy Luna Quilt:
- Identify the scraps that you want to use and press them. This might seem like an unnecessary step, but they will be so much easier to cut accurately if they aren't crumpled.
- Make sure your rotary blade is sharp!
- Make a list of how many pieces that you need. The "Single Block Cutting" instructions will tell you how many pieces you need for each block. In the "Quilt Block Construction" of the pattern, there is a table with how many blocks you need to make for each size. If you are making the lap size quilt, you will need to make 30 blocks. Write this down and keep it on your cutting table.
- As you cut your pieces, keep count of how many pieces you have cut. In my experience, you always feel like you have cut more pieces than you have actually cut so it's good to keep track and not just assume you have cut enough.
- Stack a few pieces of fabric at a time when cutting. I like to do 4-5 pieces at a time.
There is definitely more than one way to cut your scraps, but I use one of two methods.
- A small ruler + a rotating cutting mat (the mat is not necessary but does make it easier).
- A slotted ruler.
You can see in the video how I cut using each of these tools. I don't really have a preferred way — it depends on the shape of the scraps that I am cutting and I use both of these methods interchangeably.
You can also cut your background fabric from scraps if you have enough in your stash! I have a few low volume Rifle Paper Co prints in my stash and am contemplating using them as my background fabric but I haven't decided yet. We will be cutting our background fabric next week so you have a few weeks to decide.
Make sure to share a progress shot or a photo of your cut fabric on Instagram using the #lunaqal hashtag!