I finished another scrappy donation quilt this month, using my favourite scrap pattern. I often custom quilt donation quilts as well, they are great practice objects but I didn’t have time to play around, so I used a pantograph instead that I have wanted to try for quite a while. It is called “Chiffon” and I have used it in a smaller version as a background filler but never in the default edge-to-edge size. That’s another really neat thing about scrap quilts, almost any quilting design will work. This one has already been donated to the guild, and I have started making another donation quilt, a great way to use up leftovers and do something useful.

Edit: Every time I post a picture of one of these, people start asking for the pattern in the comments. There isn’t a pattern that you can purchase. This is something that one of my German friends came up with years ago.  I’ll try to explain, maybe you can figure it out by just looking at the pictures. You alternate light and dark fabrics and always press the seams away from the light pieces. I put it together in rows, I find that easier than looking for blocks. The big squares are 4″ squares (including seam allowance, so 3 1/2″ finished size). The small squares are 2″ squares, the rectangles are 2″ x 4″. This means you can just start with 4″ squares and cut them into the smaller pieces (halves and quarters) as needed, without having to worry about seam allowances. They will fit together. You can actually do this with any size squares… if you start out with 5″ squares and cut them in half or quarters, you can put it all together without having to worry about the math.

This might sound a bit confusing but just take a few 4″ squares in light and dark values and give it a try. It’s super easy, and you can make the quilt as big or small as you want to.