Quick Scrappy Gift Ideas - Scrap Management Series
Today's scrappy guest post comes from Kate at Katie Mae Quilts. Kate is a scrap quilt maker and pattern designer. She loves to create things in scrappy quilt blocks, as seen in her yearly block of the months like Scraphabet and Veggie Patch. You can find her on Instagram and Facebook as well, and if you'd like to hear more from her on the regular, you can sign up to her newsletter by clicking the button below.
Scrap Storage
I don’t pre-cut my scraps, since I never know what sizes I might want to use, but I do sort by color! I found these three drawer carts at Target that fit perfectly under my longarm, Patricia. As you can see, there’s…a lot of them. I separate by the typical colors, then further into light or dark blue, pure whites vs creams, stripes or dots that don’t have a firm color, and I keep my nerdy scraps separated by genre.
The good part of these drawers is that I can easily tell when one is overly full (since I can’t shove it back into its spot anymore.)
The bad part of these drawers is that when it’s overly full, it’s basically a scrap explosion when I decide to do something about it!
Oh Christmas Tree
Since it’s the holiday season, I decided it was time to tackle the green bin by making some Christmas trees! We all have those random small gift occasions this season - hostess gifts, teacher gifts, the poor UPS driver who comes to my house on the daily…
My neighbor hosted the annual-but-hasn’t-happened-since-we-moved-here-because-we-moved-here-in-2020 Christmas cookie exchange last weekend, and I wanted to bring her something nice for a thank you. So I rummaged through my green scraps and put together this little tree, which turned out to be not so little. Since it was slightly bigger than a pot holder or mug rug, I lined it with Insul-Brite and called it a trivet. (And cautioned her not to put it in the microwave!)
Scrappy Christmas Tree Tutorial
To make your own scrappy little tree, you need:
- GREEN
- (5) 3” squares
- (10) 2.5” green squares
- BROWN
- (1) 2.5” square
- BACKGROUND
- (2) 1.5x2.5” rectangles
- (2) 2.5” squares
- (2) 3.5x2.5” rectangles
- (2) 4.5x2.5” rectangles
- (2) 5.5x2.5” rectangles
- (5) 3” squares
Use the 3” squares to make (10) half square triangles. Lay out the block as shown, starting with the (2) 4.5x2.5” background rectangles in the top row and working your way down in sizes. As an added holiday bonus, the seams are all staggered, so it doesn’t matter if you press them open or to the side - no one has to nest! Press the top HST seams open or in opposing directions, though.
Or, if you like a fancy looking pattern you can download, you can get the free PDF to make the block here! And if you’re making more than one, you can mix up the half square triangles between blocks and it looks even scrappier.
Some other small things I’ve been sewing for the holidays this year are on my blog, as well!