The first week of the QAL is all about preparing your paper templates for foundation paper piecing, planning and choosing fabrics for your Strictly Scrappy QAL project. Whichever pattern you’re making, we’re all working on the same tasks this week.

📄 Paper Templates

Once you’ve got your pattern and read it through, it’s time to print and prep your paper templates! Preparing the paper templates for either project shouldn’t take too long (Amanda took her sweet time cutting out hers and it took her about 45 minutes total, with lots of distractions).

To speed through this part, Wendy suggests neatly stacking two to four pages of the templates, ensuring they are all identical and the pages are arranged/rotated in the same direction. Using a pair of paper scissors or rotary cutter (Amanda likes to keep a blade around that is just for cutting paper), keep a firm grip of the stack of paper and cut through multiple pages of the templates at a time.

📅Planning and Choosing Fabrics

Diving into your scraps can be overwhelming, especially when you’ve been trying to avoid it, or your scrap bin is so packed in that the scraps come flying at your face when you open the lid (Wendy speaking from experience here). Scroll down to the second half of this blog post by Wendy for tips on how to get acquainted with your scrap stash and choose fabrics for your scrappy projects.

📻To Keep You Company

As you’re digging through your scrap stash and prepping your paper templates, here are a couple past Quilt Buzz Podcast episodes for your listening pleasure:

• Episode 5 with Kim, co-founder of Feel Good Fibers: Learn more about the fabric marketplace, Feel Good Fibers, and how it gives preloved second fabric in our stash a second life.

• Episode 12 with Chris of A Full English: One of Wendy’s favorite recorded episodes! Chris is all about upcycling fabrics in his quilt projects. Tune in to learn more about how he does it and his work.

📲 This Week’s Social Media Prompt

Show us your scrap stash and let us know what sort of colors are you thinking of using for your Strictly Scrappy QAL project.

Week 2 of the QAL is all about cutting fabrics ✂️ for your Strictly Scrappy QAL project. Whichever pattern you’re making, we’re all working on the same tasks this week. 

✂ Cutting Fabrics 

There is quite a bit of cutting ahead this week and the required quantities of cut may look daunting (mostly Wendy’s fault). But we guarantee you, the results are going to look really awesome when they are all sewn together! To help speed through this process here are a couple of little tips: 

• Starting with replacing your rotary blade, if you haven’t done so yet (this is honestly just a personal reminder for Wendy…). A sharp rotary cutter should be able to cut up to 5 layers of fabrics in one sweeping motion without sections still attached.

• Layering and cutting your fabrics is also going to make a difference to the number of cuts you’re going to get at a time. Check out this blog post by Wendy for tips and shortcuts on cutting multiple squares and rectangles at a time. 

It’s not essential for cutting, but we wanted to share one of our favorite quilting notions in the sewing room that’ll to come in handy this week (and future projects in general). It’s the Stripology Ruler by Creative Grids (we are not sponsored by them…but we’d totally be open to that!). This tool helps zip through cutting multiple squares and rectangles at a time. If you’d like to see it in action, the blog post above demonstrates how the ruler works.

And keep an eye out for some more scrappy tips & tricks: Wendy will be sharing more on IG Reels throughout the week!  

📻 To Keep You Company 

We’ve hand picked a few Quilt Buzz Podcast episodes to keep you company while you’re cutting into your fabrics:

• Episode 44 featuring Allie of Exhausted Octopus: in this episode Allie clued us in on her trick to using up fabrics she doesn’t like

• Episode 38 featuring Elise of Elise Baek and Episode 36 featuring Jess of Stitches Be Crazy and Paper Pieces EPP: after speaking to these two English Paper Piecing (EPP) leaders in the quiltiverse, we were mentally another step closer to trying out EPP with what’s in our scrap stash. 

📲 This Week’s Social Media Prompt

Show us what’s on your cutting mat. It could be posts of the scraps that are about to be cut, stacks of cut up squares and rectangles, or your favorite cutting notions…and maybe/definitely snack(s)????

✅ It’s Week 3 of the QAL and we’re putting the pedal to the metal and starting to sew our blocks (one third of them to be precise). If you’re following Amanda’s Spotlight Block pattern, you will be making 40 quilt blocks. And if you’re on Team Blooming Scraps Quilt with Wendy, you will be making 60 quilt blocks.

👌 It is 100% A-OK if you’re behind on the cutting! We know that there was quite a bit to do last week and any remaining to-dos can be carried through to this week.

📄Foundations of Foundation Paper Piecing (FPP)

If you’re not familiar with the technique (or need a refresher), Wendy has put together a blog post explaining the what, why, and how to FPP. For more visual support to help break down the fundamentals and steps involved in FPP, here's a fantastic YouTube tutorial by Angela Walters.

📻 To Keep You Company

This week’s audio recommendations to keep you going are two of our past Quilt Buzz Podcast episodes with two FPP queens 👸🏻👸🏻: Verushka of Pride and Joy Quilting (Episode 43) and Andrea of 3rd Story Workshop (Episode 13). In these two episodes, Verushka and Andrea share their wisdom and love for FPP: we dare you not to fall in love with FPP after listening to them!

📲 This Week’s Social Media Prompt

The beauty of scrappy making is that no block is going to look the same: show us your favorite block of the week and tell us what project(s) the fabrics originally appeared in (if memory allows!).

✅ Week 4 of the QAL is a repeat of Week 3: we’re back at it again with more sewing! This week we’re putting together the second-third of the quilt blocks for the quilt top. If you’re following Amanda’s Spotlight Block pattern, you will be making 40 quilt blocks. And if you’re on Team Blooming Scraps Quilt with Wendy of The Weekend Quilter, you will be making 60 quilt blocks.

➕ This week, we are sharing a bonus project: check out this blog post by Wendy on how to turn your Blooming Scraps quilt blocks into coasters! For more visuals breaking down the steps in the tutorial, keep your eyes peeled for an IG Reel on Wendy’s feed.

🔗Chain Piecing and Fixing Paper Tears

Now that you’re feeling more confident with FPP, try chain piecing the templates to help with speed up the piecing process! Here’s a short IG Reel of Wendy chain piecing FPP templates. Just a little watch-out: when you are separating the chain, use a pair of scissors instead of the cutting blade on the side of the sewing machine, otherwise you may accidentally tear your paper templates with the movement and force. And if at any point that you do accidentally tear your paper templates, just use a little painter’s to patch it up. The neat thing about the tape is that thanks to its paper-like texture, you can sew over it!

📻 To Keep You Company

This week’s Quilt Buzz Podcast recommendations feature guests that explore different quilting techniques beyond traditional piecing:

• Episode 31 featuring Emily of Emily Watts Quilts: in this episode Emily walks us through how she uses bias binding for stained glass quilting

• Episode 49 featuring Youngmin Lee: we learn all about the art of bojaji, traditional Korean patchwork, in this episode

• Episode 41 featuring Cabrini of Cabin Week Projects: Cabrini clues us in on how easy it is to use fusible interfacing to raw-edge applique design elements on a quilt project

📲 This Week’s Social Media Prompt

Show off those chains! Chain pieces that is. If you’re up for an IG Reel challenge, create a time-lapse video of you chain piecing this week’s blocks.

✅ Week 5 is more sewing, sewing, sewing: this week we’re putting together the last third of the quilt blocks for the quilt top.

⚔ Cutting Shortcuts

Sew, trim, press and repeat. We’re sure you’re all very familiar with these FPP dancing steps by now. But what if we told you there was a shortcut in the trimming step? Read this blog post by Wendy to learn how you can trim multiple ¼” seam allowances at a time.

And for those who love videos: here’s an Instagram Reel by Wendy demonstrating the steps with a different quilt project.

📻 To Keep You Company

This week’s Quilt Buzz podcast recommendations feature episodes with co-founders and founders of quilting supply stores:

• Linli of Lamb and Loom Fabrics (Episode 23),

• Precious and Casey of Sew Magarbo (Episode 54)

• Catriona and Sally of Grid Fabrics (Episode 19)

• Kimberly of Fat Quarter Shop (Episode 45)

Since you’re making a dent on your scraps, technically you’re basically making some room for some new fabric…right?!??!

📲 This Week’s Social Media Prompt

Discovered any shortcuts while creating your Spring of Scraps project? Share your wisdom. We want to know all about it!

Week 6 is all about arranging your blocks and assembling your quilt top. But, don’t sweat it if you haven’t completed all your blocks yet: we’ve baked in a little extra time to finish up any of those stragglers! So go ahead, do what you need to do to finish up and assemble your quilt top.

📌Temporary Design Wall

Having a design wall may come in handy as you’re plotting out the placement of your quilt blocks. And if you don’t have one, creating a temporary one is easy! As long as you have the wall space for it, just use a strong and wide masking tape (we use the 3M contractor-grade masking tape) to tape a large enough piece of batting to the wall.

If you don’t have enough wall space or if the project is too big for the tape to hold up the weight of the batting plus your quilt blocks, you can also simply lay the batting on the floor and plot out your quilt top. And if you need to stop midway through, you can simply roll it up like a jigsaw puzzle mat!

For the batting (whether it's for a design wall or floor), cut it so there’s at least 4” overhang relative to the finished quilt top size. As long as the batting hasn’t picked up too many loose threads or dust while it’s stands in as a design wall, you can also reuse the batting for your project (technically it’s already trimmed to size and ready to go!). Whichever pattern you’re making, we’d suggest starting with a Twin Size package of batting.

Planning on creating a scrappy quilt back for the project? Leave your temporary design wall or floor setup and reuse it for planning out your #partyinthequiltback before dismantling it when it is time for basting and quilting next week.

📻 To Keep You Company

We’d like to brighten your week by recommending past Quilt Buzz episodes with guests that we think have an awesome sense of color:

• Episode 52 featuring Clara Nartey

• Episode 15 featuring Lucy Engels

• Episode 22: featuring Oon of Grape Soda Studio

📲 This Week’s Social Media Prompt

Snap a photo of your quilt top design, wherever it is in the process (all sewn together or blocks on the design wall or floor!).

✅ WE MADE IT!!! Just in time to wrap everything up with basting, quilting, and binding your scrappy masterpiece.

🎉Party in the Quilt Back

The use of scraps doesn’t stop here. Try incorporating larger scraps, off cuts or UFOs (unfinished objects in quilty speak) on the back of your quilt. For more inspiration, on how to create an unforgettable quilt back, check out the #PartyInTheQuiltBack hashtag on the ‘gram.

🏆One of a Kind Binding

You know you’re in the final stretch of the quilt making process when you hear or see the word “binding”. Wendy is putting your scraps to good use again and has put together a blog post with various quilt binding finishes ideas for example, stripes, rainbows and many more.

📻To Keep You Company

Well, it doesn’t get any more fitting than this: we’re finishing off the QAL with past Quilt Buzz Podcast guests that are superstar longarm quilters! Make sure to listen to Shelly of Matante Quilting (Episode 11) and Mindy of Wild Phil Quilting (Episode 57) share their best tips and tricks when it comes to working with a longarm quilter.

📲 Social Media Prompt

It’s all about the B’s: backing and binding. Share a photo of your backing and/or binding.