Stash-Buster Quilts

Book excerpt: Fourteen fun patchwork projects that are perfect for making use of bits and pieces—from the bestselling author of Making Scrap Quilts to Use It Up! Is your fabric hoard growing on a daily basis, taking over shelves, spilling out of drawers, stacking up on chairs? Take action now—make a stash-buster quilt! Lynne Edwards, world-renowned quilt maker, teacher and author, continues her campaign to help you reduce your fabric collection, leaving you free to go out and buy more! In this colorful book, 14 scrap quilt projects are described in step-by-step detail, complete with easy-to-follow piecing diagrams. Additional quilts are pictured to provide added inspiration for combining your leftover fabrics. Time-saving techniques are featured to help your quilt grow speedily. Arranged in six chapters, the book starts with Layer Cake quilts, where several squares of fabric are layered and then cut into wedges, just like cutting the slices of a layer cake, to create three different scrap quilts, each with a variation. The next chapter, Stitch-a-Strip, looks at quilt designs made from patchwork strips, while Squaring It Up gives you quilt designs to make from fabric squares. The Bits and Pieces chapter looks at joining different shaped pieced into attractive blocks and designs. Finally, the Small but Satisfying chapter includes a selection of smaller projects from bags to soft toys to ensure every last scrap is used! The book ends with Lynne’s expert advice for finishing a quilt including how to add borders to your quilt, how to attach the quilt backing, how to bind a quilt and advice on quilting the finished item.