I finally finished “Experimental Art Quilt #1!”

A little over two years ago, I was sick for quite awhile with an awful sinus problem. I didn’t have much energy, so to prevent too much boredom I looked for some simple tasks to do. First I sorted all my small fabric scraps by color and organized them into containers. While doing that, I thought it would be fun to challenge myself to see how small a fabric scrap could get before I couldn’t make something out of it. I wanted to upgrade my hand-sewing skills and learn the rudiments of piecing for quilt making.

I started sewing fabric pieces into strips to combine into a scrap quilt later, after seeing some beautiful examples on Pinterest. As I accumulated strips, I combined them with other leftover fabrics such as a jean pocket, a waistband from some corduroy pants, a seam from blue jeans, old clothing tags, ribbon, binding strips, selvage pieces and some rather primitive embroidered panels I made a long time ago for use on a tote bag which has since been retired.

Over the last couple of years, every once in awhile I’d add a little bit more on. Then I finished it with blanket seam binding from JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts where I taught classes in hand sewing, general crafts and jewelry making before the pandemic.

Following are some close-ups of sections of the quilt.

At the top is part of a waistband from some Lime Green corduroy pants.
Here is the top seen a little closer.
Here is a close-up of some stitching. I had some fun adding on some pieces with raw edges and treating some of my stitches like I was drawing on abstract collages in one of my art journals.
On some sections I used the pattern on the fabric as inspiration for how to do the quilting stitching. There are fabrics in this section from one of my old sheets and even a couple of pieces that I printed on with rubber stamps of my own design.
Here is the pocket. The jeans they came from were not mine – I’ve had them in my fabric stash for so long I’m not sure where they came from. The light colored denim pieces tie-dyed with black are from a pair of jeans I dyed and wore in college.
Here is the bottom end. There are fabrics in this section from sewn items my late Mom made in the early 1980s, some more fabric I printed and fabric from the ties and table runners from my wedding! My quilting friend Kate also gave me a lot of beautiful scraps I used in this section.

“Experimental Art Quilt #1” is for sale on Etsy. Here is a link to the listing:

Experimental Art Quilt #1 – Green, Aqua, Blue

7 thoughts on “I finally finished “Experimental Art Quilt #1!”

  1. Love the scrappy experiment . I started doing the same thing with my scraps making pillows and used baby fabrics to make pillow fot niece to put I her lap when she was nursing. It is so much fun because there are no rules or measurements but a whole lot of creativity. Kim

    1. I was a Creative Crew member for Canvas Corp Brands for a little over a year. We each did a profile piece for the blog for which we answered questions about ourselves and our inspirations. For the question “what is your muse” I answered “collage” because all my life I’ve been inspired by bits and pieces of just about anything that is “leftover”. I tried to analyze and explain that a bit in this post here: http://www.chasenfratz.com/wp/johndaddy-johndaddy-johndaddy/

      If you have pictures online of things you’ve made with scraps please feel free to post links here!

  2. Great quilt and you are recycling to good advantage ! Hope you are all healed now and looking forward to your next quilt !

  3. Your quilts are so meaningful and gorgeous. I also love bits and pieces of fabric, trims, lace, yarn, ribbons, and all kinds of items. I’ve never tackled a quilt but, you have inspired me. Maybe I’ll work my way into a quilt.
    Thank you for your wonderful post.

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