To Be Resourceful...

Having set myself the challenge not to purchase anymore fabric (yeah right, you say.) I have taken a leaf out of Mary Ellen Hopkin's book when she says to pick the scraps up off the floor and put them on the back. Well they weren't on the floor but I did use the fabric leftover after piecing, to widen the backing.
I have made two simple lap size quilts from two charm square packs, two jelly rolls along with a couple of metre lengths from the Ticklish range of fabric. For the first I used the pink, purple and aqua pieces holding over the yellow, green and orange pieces for the second.

Its all about the Pink in Quilt No 1.....

I couldn't keep my commitment for the pinks (favourite colour), I found some of the Ticklish range available in flannel and so I did make a purchase for the backing on Quilt No 1. However I stuck to my guns with Quilt No 2.

I had just enough length of one piece of fabric but the width was narrow. So joined all the scraps from the jelly rolls together to make three long strips. I interspersed a couple of other leftovers and then inserted the pieced section at the 1/3 mark across the width.

Why did I split the piece at the 1/3 mark? I didn't want any seams to fall anywhere near the edge of the quilt top because I want to avoid unseemly extra bulk in the binding. Even if I carefully plan the placement of the seams sometimes the quilting will shrink the quilt and plans can go astray and it is better to be safe than sorry.

Sorry about the yellow piece of paper there, it is a note to self indicating the top edge and how far down to position the top of the quilt so that I also miss the horizontal seams in the strips.

Oh and by the way, contrary to the suggestion I make on my website Pieced Backings I do not have all the fabric grains travelling in the same direction. The Crosswise grain of the jelly roll strips is travelling in a vertical direction  and the crosswise grain of the main piece of fabric is travelling in a horizontal direction. It's okay though because I took care when piecing and cutting, strips are straight and even, the whole backing is laying flat and I'm sure it will work well.

So next time you are thinking what to 'put on the back', try using up the scraps.... it's fun and it works!

The finished quilt.