Sarah Jane Bowling: tutorial: my scrappy quilt mat

Your scraps are your memories! Keep them and make them into something you can look at all day.

Make this and reminisce.

Get all of your scraps. Ahhh all the memories...
OK, get cutting to about 2.5" strips or what ever size you like. Any length goes.

Get a good pile happening, no order at all works best for me and all different lengths too.

Take 2 pieces, short right sides together and sew together using about a 1/2" seam allowance, see below picture.
DON'T lift the foot off, check out next step and picture, cause you want to keep going!!

So, you now keep going and going. Take 2 more pieces, short right sides together and feed behind your first piece and sew together using about a 1/2" seam allowance. See picture below. This save your cotton and also keeps things together.

Keep going..... Maybe 6-8 rows long otherwise it gets a bit confusing and hard to handle.

Take an end of your 2 pieces and 1 cut scrap right sides together and do the same to create a 3 piece row.. and so on and so on till about 5 pieces in your row.
Lay it out as you can see below. It's ok that it is over lapping and not flat, that's just cause the lengths are all different.

Straighten out and have one end (my photo is upside down?) in line so you know how many more scrap pieces you need to get the length you are after. I worked off about a 130cm width. Make it bigger or smaller if you want.
It should look a little like the picture below.

I repeated all the above steps above to get about 20 rows hat gave me out to be about 110cm in length (110cm length once it was sewn together. You obviously have to take into consideration that you are sewing these rows together and will loose about an inch per strip when finished.)
Don't worry too much on your layout, cause it doesn't matter if some fabrics double up, but if you want to make sure they don't, figure all that out now and lay it out and swap around till you get the look you are after.. See below my upside down photo :), oh and one end will be in line and the other wont..

We do need to iron all the seams flat, so turn that iron on and get cracking... It gives it a nicer flatter finish at the end.
Now we take the top row and the 2nd row's long edges right sides together and sew together using a 1/2" seam allowance.
Take the 3rd row and match right sides long edges together with your 2nd piece, see picture below.. and so on. Do about 5-7 rows and put back on the floor and start again with another 5-7 rows..

Once you have joined all your rows, heat that iron up and press seams over to one side, no need to open seam and press flat. You can see the top piece nice and flat on a few pictures below this one.
Now we get the backing piece. I used a heavier material cause it will be going on the floor, grass or what ever. Lay it out on the floor or table and cut one piece about 2-3" wider and longer that your top piece. This will help when you sew all pieces together at the end.
Using the floor boards straight lines made it really easy to cut/measure. Also the groove in between each floor board helped the scissors glide through a straight line too! I thought that was pretty cool.

Assemble all three layers. Lay back piece right side facing down, then batting, then your top scrappy piece right side facing up.
Start pinning!! Start from the middle and pin the three pieces together. Pin every few strips and ever few rows. See below picture..

The quilting begins... Again start from the middle and work your way out. Sew straight down the seam lines of the rows. See below. You will need to fold over half of the blanket to get the whole thing through. See below picture.

Once you have zing'd down all the rows, it is time to trim your edges so that the back and the batting/wadding piece are in line with your top piece.
Now the binding (this neaten ups the edges and gives it the boarder and finished edge). You might even want to google this for more detailed instructions if you haven't done it before.
With the same method of your scrap rows, make a row with width no smaller than 2.5" (i used the same as the strips for blanket) a few metres long to get around all the edges with about 40cm extra for the finishing off of binding..
Fold binding pieces in half with wrong sides facing.
Match up raw edges on the back of mat with the raw edges of your folded biding. Make sure you leave about 20cm before you start sewing as this will help joining end piece together at the end.
Pin pin and start sewing about 1/4" in from edge, see below.

Sew along till about 1/8" to the end then turn fabric and a few stitches to the edge corner. See below picture.

Again, sew 1/8" in from edge starting at the top of this side. See picture below.

Repeat with all corners.
When you get closer to the end, leave about 20cm and overlap binding to measure and pin the exact length needed to finish binding flush on it's self. Picture below shows this. I have cut off excess ready to finish binding off.

Turn your Scrappy Quilt Mat over and fold your binding over and sew 1/8" in from the inside edge. See below.

Your done! Now put it out the back and set it up with some morning tea for the kids, or load it up with some of their favorite toys and just watch them, playing on your memories of making.

I would love to see your Scrappy Quilt Mat

Sarah Jane Bowling