Scrappiness is Happiness

Sarah Ashford, reviews the latest book from quilter and author, Lori Holt

If you’re a quilter, it’s more than likely you have an ever-mounting pile of scraps. They are so pretty, but it can be hard to know how to organise them, store, and how to use them up! That’s where the book Scrappiness is Happiness by Lori Holt of Bee in my Bonnet comes in. Lori has put together a beautiful compendium of no less than 35 scrappy quilts to give you the opportunity to use up every last piece that you have in your stash.

Tried & tested organisation

Before diving into the quilt patterns, Lori shares with us the six-step scrap organising method – her tried and tested way of keeping her scrap fabrics under control, and in a size based system so that different sizes and colours can be easily located.

Lori loves scraps so much, she even details how she cuts fat quarters into strips, so they are ready for putting into quilt blocks.

With pre-cut scraps ready to go, it saves masses of time when it comes to making scrappy quilts.

Quilt types

The first section of the book features ‘one block wonder’ quilts, with one motif being repeated throughout the quilt. These quilts feature motifs such as bees, mushrooms, mini mushrooms, checkerboards, stars and pumpkins. In the next section, the focus is one ‘just add sashing’ quilt, where the sashing acts as a border or spacer in between each block. It’s amazing how different a quilt can look with sashing! Quilts in this section include tulips, sewing machines and tall pines, as well as the more traditional quilt blocks such as the churn dash, stars and checkerboards.

Binding, backing & other

Finally, in the last chapter, Lori details all of her top tips for binding, backing and a really comprehensive cutting guide. She shares how many different size squares can be cut from a fat quarter, how many strips from a yard of fabric, the fast flying geese method, the half and quarter square triangle size chart and much more.

Summary

Lori’s distinctive style, beautiful quilt photography and signature fabrics make this book a joy to read and absorb. Being spiral bound, it’s easy to turn the pages, and the pages you want open lay nice and flat.

As always with Lori’s books, the fabric requirements are really clear and the construction diagrams are simple to follow.

I loved making the apple block, and I see making more of Lori’s blocks and quilts in my future.