Uses for Your Smallest Fabric Scraps

A glass heart bowl filled with crumb quilt heart ornaments

I like to call my smallest fabric scraps, bits or crumbs.  These precious little pieces are some of my favorite toys.  I figure I paid as much for them as I did for the yardage in my stash.  Plus they have the added value of the memories they hold from the previous projects I made with them.

While I try to gather my crumbs as I go, and add them to my bits bin.  You can learn more about my scrap sorting method here.  But I must admit, I’m not perfect at this.  So when I’m running low on crumbs I go through my strips and chunks and pull out those little pieces.  So what do I consider a crumb?  If a strip is less than 10″  I throw it in the crumbs bin.  If a chunk is less than 5″ it joins my crumbs.  This video shows how I do that.

I like to use these smallest fabric scraps in a number of ways, including applique and improv piecing.  I find they make great bird beaks, tree trunks and star points. 

The main way I like to use crumbs is to make crumb fabric. I wrote a whole book on this method.   I use crumb fabric for anything you would use regular fabric for.  This includes piecing and applique.

I also find it a great way to add interest to a background.

Crumb fabric is traditionally made with a mix of colors.  But I have found that just like when I use a single color or family of colors to make a background that crumb fabric looks great done in a single color like I did for the star in Color My World. If you don’t have enough of one color to do this.  Try branching out to that color’s neighbors on the color wheel.

I hope this gives you ideas on how to play with your smallest fabric scraps.

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