For this month’s Scrap-Happy post hosted by Kate@talltalesfromchiconia, I took a break from my maple leaf rag quilt to make a scrappy quilt for  my nephew’s wedding.

I just love love love when I can get a wonderful scrappy throw quilt out of left over scraps from another quilt. I like to call these my “freebie” quilts:)

I had quite a few scraps leftover from my Navajo code talkers quilt that I finished this summer. They have been sitting in a box waiting for that perfect time to peek their head out and join together in quilt happiness.

My nephew is getting married in a few weeks. I didn’t want to make a “girlie” quilt for him and his new bride. This fabric was perfect! “Manly, yes, but I like it too!” Am I dating myself with that? Lol:)

I found a picture of a quilt on Pinterest called “x” Marks The Spot by fabrictherapy.blogspot.com She has a great free tutorial there. It was perfect for using my piano key border scraps on. It looked so easy that I just made up the pattern as I went. I made up 20 5″x16.5″ piano key strips because that was the size of my scrap border.

The tutorial doesn’t use foundation piecing, but I like a foundation for the guide of the fabric. So I gathered some old “yucky” fabric that I had from years ago or that was given to me by loving relatives or friends who thought I could use it. And they were right. I save these sub-standard quality fabrics to use for foundation piecing. They work great!

I folded my strips in half and ironed them to mark the center.
Then I sewed them corner to corner matching the center to the points on the square.

I had quite a bit of 2.5″ binding left over from this summer as well. I cut it in half and used it as the framing pieces on either side of the piano piece.
Then I stitched more strips to both sides making a very uneven square. I did not try to match the width of the strips. This quilt is using scraps and that means grab the scrap and use it!


But the magical fun happens when you trim the block:). I trimmed mine to 11″ because that was the size that fit the smallest block. Oh, it looks so pretty!

I just love the look of a nicely cut stack of blocks, don’t you?

I layed the blocks out 4×5 and sewed them together. I made sure to match the the center seams, but didn’t worry too much about the black. It’s a scrap quilt and I want it to look just put together.

 I wish I would have had enough scraps for a 5×6 throw, but I think the border made this quilt big enough. It measures 51″x62″, perfect!

I know they are going to love this quilt. I have used black minky on the back for SWEET, snugly softness.

Thank you for stopping by!
–Tracy:)

PS- I am also happy to be linking up with Scraptastic Tuesday