Quilter's Scrap Pantry by Susanclaire Mayfield

Quilter's Scrap Pantry

by Susanclaire Mayfield

Quilters inevitably have short lengths of full fabric widths as well as smaller leftover pieces from creating countless projects. Author, SusanClaire Mayfield has created an organizational model for using up that scrap quilting fabric. SusanClaire's current students have found that scraps suddenly become so much more tempting to work with after they have set up what she calls her "Leftovers Pantry". When scraps are intentionally organized and stored, quilters can easily create the quilt blocks described in this book such as 4-patches, 9-patches, rectangles, half-square triangles, Flying Geese and Snowballs. SusanClaire walks quilters through setting up a pantry, piece by piece, and what to do with larger fabric yardage stacks. As a bonus, she links her organizational content to her YouTube videos for each section and includes additional tips for thrifty quilting.

Reviewed by annieb123 on

4 of 5 stars

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Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

Quilter's Scrap Pantry is a well written and non-judgemental tutorial guide for getting control of (and using) the stash that every crafter has, written and curated by Susan-Claire Mayfield. Released 19th March 2024 by Fox Chapel on their Landauer imprint, it's 68 pages and available in paperback and ebook formats. 

Most quilters are, by nature, frugal and hate to throw away even the smallest scraps from earlier projects. This quickly leads to a massive (often disorganized) stash of bits and bobs, scraps, and pieces, which we stuff into closets and drawers and bemoan occasionally. Refreshingly, the author here encourages us to drag it all out into the light, separate it into light medium and dark piles, and organize it into usable *sized* pieces and shapes most often used in quilts, -and- store it in see-through containers (plastic boxes, etc). 

If we see the items we have, we'll use them instead of rapidly losing courage and being daunted by the idea of digging through a house worth of hidden smaller stashes. 

MANY of the general ideas and concepts here will be very useful for multi-crafters, including yarn, thread, embroidery, weaving, quilting, metalworking, jewelry-making, beading, and more.

Four stars. It's a very short, but info-packed booklet. It would be a good choice for public library acquisition, home use, gifting, studio groups, maker's groups, guilds and similar. 

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes. 

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Reading updates

  • 3 April, 2024: Started reading
  • 3 April, 2024: Finished reading
  • 3 April, 2024: Reviewed