What is Scrappy?

Grandpa’s Best, Diamond Links, Eye Fooler (tweaked for my use)
Scrappy Irish Chain, Texas Braid, Ladder to the Stars
Sew Scrappy, Sisters Choice – Bonnie Hunter (tweaked for my use), Turning Twenty Again

Since I seem to not be blogging much this year, I thought I would share a post I wrote on Facebook in the Quiltville’s Open Studio group.

One of the first posts I read this morning had to do with what is scrappy. I suspect the post was written as a commentary on marketing of fabric and patterns. So, I thought I would put together a college of some of my ‘scrappy’ quilts.

If ‘scrappy’ is defined as ‘left over fabric’ (assuming one can buy fabric to tie it together) all but two of these quilts fit that category – Top Center & Bottom Right — The Top Center were collected FQs specifically for the quilt and the Bottom Right was a FQ stack from the same line of fabric. The top center I use as an example when someone says they ‘don’t like scrappy’. I think it was cut from 12 – 15 FQ of each color. 36 – 45 different fabrics say scrappy to me.

If a quilt is not scrappy because the fabric is from the same line there are 3 quilts in the picture that match this criteria (Bottom Row). The Bottom Left are scraps of Kansas Trouble fabrics given to me. The Bottom Center used a Three Sisters charm pack as the basis of the 9-patch – the green and peach are consistent throughout the quilt, but the background is scrappy. The Bottom Right I mentioned previously.

The Top Left was made from blues in my stash I think the only thing I purchased was the border fabric. The Top right the black and gold was purchased, the brights were from my scraps.

The quilts in the center row are from my scraps, except for the fabric I used to tie them together. The Left Center uses a constant background fabric. Center quilt uses a purchased red. The Right Center I purchased the gold, red and blue.

So bottom line, I think scrappy is in the eye of the viewer. I’ve had people who say they ‘don’t do scrappy’ or ‘I don’t like scrappy’ change their mind when they see what ‘scrappy’ can be.

I suspect this is what the Quilting Police are really thinking when they say “scrappy”:

Oklahoma Back Roads, Log Cabin, Scrappy Trips

These three quilts were made from my scraps – some pre-cut into squares, rectangles and strips, others from what was left from the FQs which I had previously cut into for another project.The only “yardage” used was the binding — and for all three of these quilts it was left over from another project, or at least not purchased specifically for these quilts.

I could come up with more examples of ‘scrappy’, but if you found my blog prior to the first of the year, you know ‘scrappy’ is what I do. I seldom make quilts from a single line of fabric or using just a few fabrics.