Crumb quilting revisited with the Brother Innov-ís BQ3050 machine

Most quilters can’t bear to part with scraps of favorite fabrics and tend to keep them in little bins and boxes for future use. Crumb quilting, although not a new idea, is very popular now. In my February 2020 QUILTsocial post, Crumb quilting: What’s it all about?, I used my Brother Innov-ís BQ3050 to make these scrappy crumb quilts.

I think with our recent lockdowns, stay at home orders, social distancing etc. – resulting in more time for sewing for many of us – we now realize just how much fabric we have in our stash.

My crumb collection started out as a couple of bins of fabric – one with batiks and the other with everything else. I soon started using three bins and sorting fabrics into batiks, lights and darks.

Then those bins got full, and I realized I had to start sorting by color. I’m so glad I did! Now I have a small stacking cupboard on wheels, the fabrics are sorted by color and itʼs so much easier to access everything. Some quilters like to sort their scraps by size or shape – squares, strips etc. Whatever works for you is what you should do!

For this week’s QUILTsocial blog, I wanted to show you some projects using strips of scrap fabrics. I also wanted to show you more of the wonderful decorative stitches I have on my Brother Innov-ís BQ3050 machine. Then I received the Mont Marte Signature Fabric Art Set filled with paint sticks, fabric markers, and puffy fabric paints. So now I’ll be sharing ideas for using scrap strips, decorative stitching and fabric paints and markers!

Here’s one of the projects for this week.

Let’s get started!

I’ll be using strips of black and white fabric for the main color and strips of red, blue and green for the accent colors.

• The black and white strips can be any width from 1½” to 3½” and whatever length you have.
• Cut the accent strips so they are 1″ wide and whatever length you have.
• Arrange the strips as desired, having a 1″ colored strip between each black and white strip.
• Sew a colored strip to one side of a black and white strip using a ¼” seam.
• Start and end with a black and white strip.

This is a good time to use either the Brother ¼” Piecing Foot-Guide or the Brother ¼” Quilting Foot without guide to ensure accurate ¼” seams.

Sew strips together so you have a finished a strip set that’s about 12½” wide.

Press seams toward the 1″ colored strips. The raw edges of the seam allowances should meet after they are pressed. You may have to adjust your seam allowance to make this happen.

Straighten one edge of the strip set. Use the lines on your ruler to align the seam lines with the lines on your ruler. An OLFA 12½” Square Frosted Acrylic Ruler is perfect for this step!

Cut the strip set into sections that are from 2″ – 3½” wide.

You may have strip sets that look like this after they’ve been cut. You can always add more strips to the “leftovers” to make a new strip set.

Make more strip sets like this until you get the number you need for your project. My finished quilt was 40″ x 47″ but you can make any size project you like with this technique. It’s also a good method for making table runners and placemats.

I really appreciate the large workspace on the Brother Innov-ís BQ3050 when working with all these strips. My machine is in a cabinet, but if your machine sits on a table, the Brother BQ3050 comes with a wide table to expand your workspace even more.

Come back tomorrow and I’ll show you how I used my Brother Innov-ís BQ3050 machine to sew these strip sets together for a quilt top.

This is part 1 of 5 in this series

Go to part 2: Putting it all together with the Brother Innov-ís BQ3050