The Luna QAL Week 2 - Picking Your Scraps

You may have guessed by now that I love scrap quilts. I love how they look, I love the process of using leftover pieces to make something new, and I love writing patterns that work well with scraps. The Luna Quilt is a wonderful project for scraps because it uses a variety of smaller pieces and it is great for leftover jelly roll strips or binding strips.

Sorting through scraps, especially if you have a lot of them, can be a little bit overwhelming. If you are making your Luna Quilt scrappy, here are some options to think about.

• Use scraps from a single designer, manufacturer, or collection. That is what I will be doing! I am going to use Rifle Paper Co. scraps from several different collections. I really love the prints and am happy to have a project to use them up. If you don't have enough scraps to do this, it is ok to cut some of your fabric from yardage, especially if it helps you get more variety in your quilt.

• Make a rainbow scrap quilt. I have already done this and I wrote a post about making a successful rainbow scrap quilt. 
• Use fabric in a similar style or theme. Your scraps can be curated, they don't have be random! Find color inspiration and try to use scraps that coordinate. This is one of my favorite ways to pick fabrics.
• Go completely random. You can even make an "ugly" scrap quilt and use a bunch of fabrics from your stash that you don't love anymore. 

Here are some things to think about as you narrow down fabrics for your quilt.

• Variety! Scrap quilts always look better when you have as many fabrics as possible in your quilt.
• Look for prints with different value, color, and scale. 

• If you are using solids, use as many different shades as possible.
• Decide if you want to use scraps for your background fabrics or just your feature fabric. If you have a lot of leftover low volume or white-ish solids from previous projects, this can be a great way to use them up. That's what I did for my rainbow Luna Quilt!

Sorting through scraps take a little time, so if you are making a scrappy quilt as part of the quiltalong, go ahead and get started (and be prepared to vacuum afterwards, scraps are messy!). 

Also — spoiler alert — I am going to highly, highly recommend that you press your scraps before we start cutting so you can get started on that this week, too. 

Scrap quilts are just magic and I cannot wait to see what you guys make!