Quilter in a Strange Land: Frankenbatts

Friday, 7 July 2017

Frankenbatts

As anyone who has read more than a couple of my blog postings knows I hate throwing usable fabric away. This includes batting (wadding in the UK where batting is what cricketers do!), especially now I have nearly used up my big roll of Soft and Bright by the Warm Company and need to splurge on a new one. I started using this batting in my quilts in the UK because it behaves nicely and washes and dries easily, if line drying a quilt it doesn't hold too much water (weight) and in the tumble dryer it dries very quickly. Anyway, I am down to my last couple of square yards in big pieces and didn't want to cut into them for my cushion covers. I dug in my bag of trimmings from the edges of quilts and came up with this:

My cushion covers measured up at 21" square, so I cut the long strips into 23" lengths and zig-zagged them together:

I just butt the edges together.

I use the longest stitch length and the widest width.

This seam will be invisible once the quilt is finished.

After a little time spent sewing I ended up with these:

Which are just the right size for my Dresden plate cushion covers, inspired by the Rainbow Scrap Challenge:

And my pile of batting trimmings is much reduced, though still enough to make another small Frankenbatt:

The cushion covers are now finished and in place on our sofa, much more in keeping with the weather than the Christmas ones which can have a few months rest. Completing these was my stated One Monthly Goal for July and I achieved it by the 5th!

The zips/zippers (another word that gets change just a little bit crossing the Atlantic) were inserted by following this excellent tutorial from DIY Home Decor.