My Blue Scrap Bin Quilt

Recently I have been obsessed with all the beautiful granny square quilts that I've seen popping up on Flickr lately.  I just had to make one.  It took me a long time planning out each block, going through my stash and choosing which fabrics to use!  That was the best fun, but maybe just a bit of a messy process?  I hate that every I get in a creative mood, I seem to make chaos all over my studio.  Oh well, it was truly fun!

I just finished sewing down the binding.  This binding is also the first time I've used a new method as recommended by one of the older ladies at my local sewing group.  She doesn't cut the wadding to the edge, but instead leaves an extra 1/4 inch extra hanging over the edge to help "fill" the binding.  It makes it slightly harder to hand sew as there is more bulk, but the result is a binding that feels more like cording.  I like it and will use this method when finishing quilts in future.

The quilting pattern I used for this quilt is an Anne Bright pattern called "Button Blossoms".  The center of each flower is stitched to look like a button.  Cute, right?  Anyway, I thought it had a bit of a 30's feel to it that would work well with the granny square blocks.

So, are you wondering why I titled this "My Blue Scrap Bin Quilt"?  Well, about 6 months ago (before I got my long arm machine) I posted some pictures of my sewing room and my scrap organizing system.  At the time my blue scraps were filled to the brim.  Since that time they have been spilling over, so I decided to make the backing using only my scraps from the bin.  It was fun, freeing and cleansing all at the same time.  The result was this:

Definitely something that I will do again and again.  Great way to use scraps, although a bit more time consuming than the plain backings.  My husband declares he likes the back better than the front.

I will leave you with a few close up shots of some of my favorite blocks...