Halloween Fabric made from Scraps
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I Fell Down The YouTube Rabbit Hole
I have a love/hate relationship with YouTube. One minute it’s my BFF, and the next, I’m hours in, and I have the urge to take up tatting or throwing clay.
My nighttime routine is to pop in my earbuds, dim my phone, crack open my Watch Later list, and fall asleep in the middle of a how-to video on YouTube. I’m always trying to learn new things, even in my sleep.
I love needlecrafts – cross stitch is my favorite, but I thought I might want to experiment with making a Halloween quilt. Now, this isn’t something I thought I’d take on soon but more of a bucket list, “might get around to it when I’m 90”, kind of thing. I’ve never quilted in my life, so I began watching videos on the process to learn more about it. And naturally, because of my growing interest, YouTube decided that I needed to see all the videos about quilts.
Most recently, the YouTube rabbit hole has introduced me to paper piecing, foundation quilting, crumb quilts, and strip piecing – all of which can require only scraps and are more forgiving than creating a specific pattern.
After watching this smorgasbord of how-to’s, I decided to jump in and try some of these techniques to create some Halloween fabric from my scraps. So I thought I’d share the results of this experiment with you today.
To begin, we are going to need a few supplies.
Scrap fabrics
Scissors
Sewing machine (or needle for hand stitching)
Thread
Cutting mat
Rotary cutter
Straight edge such as a ruler
Iron
Pressing mat or ironing board
Alright, let’s jump in!
My goal was to create strips, so first, I did a rough layout of my scraps in rows.
While most of my scrap pieces were already square or rectangular, they did not fit nicely together as some were more narrow than others. But that’s okay, as we will square up our rows after stitching the pieces together.
I began attaching all of the pieces in the first row. With the right sides together, I stitched together my top two pieces using a 1/4″ seam allowance. Then I moved on to the next piece and continued this process until the row was complete.
Next, I pressed the seams flat.
I then continued creating strips until I had completed all of the rows.
Now it was time to straighten things up, so I took my first strip, laid it out on my cutting mat, and squared up the strip using a straight edge and a rotary cutter. I did this to all four sides of the strip and repeated it for each row.
Now that all the strips are squared up, I began stitching them together.
One final press and I now have my own Halloween fabric made from scraps.
Not bad!
While I won’t be winning the top prize at the quilting bee anytime soon, I enjoyed this little experiment, and I’m excited about using my new Halloween fabric in a future project.
Part of the fun of creating this Halloween fabric is recycling scraps from other projects. For example, the orange-on-orange check can be found in our Scarecrow Costume and Hat, the haunted house fabric was perfect for our Creepy Centerpiece, and the black and white skulls helped craft our Spooktacular Bangles.
