Scrappy Quilt Ideas for the Window Panes Quilt Pattern

I thought it might be fun to explore some options with my Window Panes PDF quilt pattern. I think the jelly roll options are pretty straight forward – you can create a coordinated, homogeneously scrappy looking quilt with your strips.

Additionally, for the baby size you can pick and choose your strips, if you like, to create a more curated, same-blocks-in-each-row look.

With fat quarters you can easily turn a bunch of same-colour fabrics into a restrained scrappy quilt. These teal fabrics had a fair bit going on (probably why they’ve been in my stash for so long – I struggled to put them into a project), however all together they look great.

Your FQs don’t have to all be the same colour – perhaps add a single contrasting FQ to give it a bit of oomph?

Or maybe increase the amount of contrasting colour and arrange in a more ordered manner?

Add 2 contrasting colours?

I have a ton of navy scraps and I’d love to see them sparkle with some other bright, happy colours:

There’s so many arrangements you could make with this pattern – have some fun with it. The Window Panes quilt pattern includes printable colour-in sheets for each of the sizes (baby, throw, twin, queen and king).

One thing I like to do is let my scraps tell me what needs to be in the quilt. If you find that you have a ton of scraps in a few particular colours (which most of us usually do) then play around with those colours. Which will be the main? Which will be your main accent? Minor accent? Sometimes my scrap pile can feel overwhelming, so it’s nice to pick a constrained palette and work from there.

And don’t forget you can invert your palette and have the dark fabric as sashing, creating a whole new series of potential layouts!

For instance, I really love this (below):

How about my beloved navy?

Now that’s rather decadent, don’t you think? Switching the middle up a bit:

How about a queen size quilt:

Or maybe with the yellow on the edges? So many options.

More Scrappy Quilt Ideas

Let’s move on to other scrappy uses. If you send quilts out for long-arm quilting you might have a range of long sides left over from your excess backing. You could easily cut them up into 2.5″ strips and use them to sew window blocks, or if you have enough, use it as sashing.

I pieced a backing last year and now I have plenty of long scraps, sewn from 5″ squares. Cutting these into 2.5″ strips will make some pretty cool windows blocks. I just have to be careful the seams don’t fall parallel and right at the edge of the block. (This will put a seam within a seam which will be bulky). Here’s a couple I sewed up:

And of course, you don’t have to use strips at all. Why not make super scrappy crumb blocks over the course of a year and then combine them into a quilt? The Window Panes pattern gives you the unfinished measurements of the 3 window blocks. So you can just keep combining scraps until you reach the required size. Once you’ve built a stockpile of blocks grab some yardage (or a jelly roll) for sashing and you’ll be ready to sew a quilt.

These blocks would be so good against dark sashing – a stained glass windows kind of look.

You could put your scrappy blocks in rainbow colour order rows:

Or columns:

Or if you’re feeling contrarian, try the diagonal:

Alright my friends, I’d better stop. I could keep adding layouts forever, they’re so much fun.

Would you like to get your scrap pile under control? Why not try one of these scrappy quilt ideas with the Window Panes quilt pattern.

You can find the Window Panes PDF quilt pattern here in my shop.

Happy sewing and scrap busting!

Kirsty

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