Another Scrap Quilt – Scrappy Lattice Waves

Who doesn’t love a good scrap quilt pattern? No one, that’s who!

We’re always going to need good scrap quilt patterns because of the infernal rate at which scraps breed. No matter how many scrap quilts you sew, the scrap pile doesn’t seem to get smaller. Scrap piles are scientific anomalies – fabric Bermuda Triangles that defy the laws of time and space!

When my daughter said she needed a new quilt, I told her it had to be a scrap quilt. My scrap pile is kept in plastic bags in my cupboard and several of the bags were at overflow level. Thankfully she was very on board with this idea.

My daughter is almost 15 (which is crazy to me) and very involved in all sorts of water sports. She has swim squad 4 mornings a week, loves her surf sports (ocean swimming and paddle boarding) and is a patrolling surf life saver at our local beach. (She patrols with her Dad – otherwise I couldn’t handle it – my respect for the ocean runs on the side of fear.)

All this to say that an ocean-themed quilt was the obvious choice (also, my blue and green scraps were out of control).

I knew I wanted to make another Scrappy Lattice quilt (it’s such an easy quilt to whip up – I really enjoy chain piecing). So I used the colour-in sheets to devise a beachy, scrappy kind of quilt. The quilt represents a bird’s eye view of the beach – where the water meets the sand.

I made the twin size and divided it into 5 main areas. I started with the deep water – navy scraps. Then I went to dark teal, then aqua, then light blue. The last colour was light tan/dark beige, to represent the sand.

It came together quickly and made a considerable dent in my scrap pile.

The backing was fun to put together. I try to avoid pieced backings wherever possible because I’m lazy. But this time I decided to go with a simple squares backing for 2 reasons: it ate up a lot of larger scraps and some stash FQs, and it gave my daughter some good sewing practice.

I explained to my daughter that I wanted a simple squares backing in 3 colours. She rummaged through my stash and picked out 3 colours and built 3 small piles of FQs and scraps. I cut all the squares (5″) and then we laid them all out together. She labelled them for me and put them in piles. We had a quick lesson on quarter inch seams and chain piecing and then she was into it.

For reference, this was just when school was cancelled and we went into quarantine home schooling (around April/May). My daughter would do a few hours of school work (she’s Grade 9/Freshman year) and then come into my sewing room and sew 2 rows together. Repeat. It took about 4 days for all the rows to be sewn. She pressed them all and I then sewed the rows together into the quilt back.

I’m not a fan of quilting anything larger than a throw quilt so I sent this one out to be quilted. The lovely Fiona of The Quilting Fairy quilted this one with a very appropriate wave pattern in a dove grey thread. The grey blends in well across all the different colours.

I chose a scrappy binding and used my zigzag binding method to attach. I used a light blue thread, which matched nicely.

Is your scrap pile getting a little crazy? Now’s a good time to pull it out and listen to what it has to say to you.

Sometimes you don’t even have to listen very hard, the colour ideas just present themselves. I pulled out several bags from my scrap pile (I keep my scraps in colour-themed bags) and I loved the colour scheme presented to me:

I grabbed a selection of fabric scraps and laid them out in order.

Above: fuchsia, orange, grass green, light blue, navy.

Hmm, maybe aqua instead of light blue?

I think it’s a little bit brighter? Here’s how I could use them with the Scrappy Lattice pattern. Firstly I could use the same “wave” layout I used for my daughter’s quilt:

Or I could go with a diagonal layout like this one:

Oooh, very 80s! Or perhaps a slightly different diagonal layout:

I see this as a softer version – the diagonals are a little more fuzzy.

The Scrappy Lattice pattern has colour-in sheets for all 5 quilt sizes (in both small and large block sizes) so you can draw out your preferred layout.

Here’s a warm colour way I explored (all based on what my scrap pile presented).

Above: red, fuchsia, pink, orange, yellow.

Here’s a cool colour way:

Above: navy, light blue, grass green, yellow green, green yellows.

If the navy is too dark, you could try this one:

Above: light blue, grass green, yellow green, green yellow, mustard/gold.

Scrappy Lattice is a very adaptable pattern – you can go with single colour scraps:

Don’t forget you can change the lattice colour too:

Beautiful red and black quilt by Kalynn above.

Another gorgeous version with black lattice by Cynthia.

Or you can make a multi colour rainbow version:

This version is best when you don’t have enough scraps in one colour to make a quilt. Choose the colours you have the most scraps of to make the central diagonals. Then the corners can be made with the colours where you have fewer scraps. It’s very adaptable to your scrap pile.

If you run a tight ship and have minimal scraps or are new to quilting and haven’t accumulated a scrap pile yet (it will come…it will come) you can find some lovely bundles of scraps on Etsy here* and here*.

That’s it from me today. I’m off to think about a Christmas themed scrap quilt for my couch (purely for decoration as we are heading into summer here). Hopefully it will prove a nice distraction from the current state of the world. ☹️

If you’d like to sew your own scrap quilt then you can buy a copy of the Scrappy Lattice quilt pattern here in my shop. Happy sewing!

*affiliate link. Thank you for supporting Bonjour Quilts with your Etsy purchases

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