Make a Scrap Bag

Level: Eager Beginner Total Time: 10 Hours

Hey bestie! Welcome back, and welcome back to another earth month! Y’all already know earth month for me is a BIG month, as one of my personal and business goals is to live as sustainable of a lifestyle as I can. So Earth Month is a great time for me to recenter my goals, find new ways to use and reuse things, and just continue to educate myself on ways to be eco friendly in an industry that is the second most polluting industry.

One of those ways was reusing my scraps! If you’ve watched Next In Fashion on Netflix, SPOILER ALERT, the winner of the second season Nigel really inspired me in this project. Watching him use fabric in such an unconventional way inspired me to break open my box of scraps, and buy this TYTKA Studio bag, and get to work! The bag in total took me about 6 hours to complete, and I was able to test out my latest sewing experiment during this project. Want to learn more on how to swap your quilt batting for plastic bags and fabric scraps? Head over to Patreon and subscribe to get the details!

Ready to make a scrap bag? Keep reading!

Tools Needed

• 2.5×2.5 quilting ruler and/or clear ruler to cut straight lines
• Excessive amount of scraps (I used roughly 1/4 yard per bag side)
• Rotary Cutter (Makes it MUCH easier to cut the squares)
  • Cutting Mat if you are using rotary cutter
• Lining for bag (I used scrap lining from a few projects)
• Thread (I used Guterman thread)
• Snips and/or scissors
• Pins
• TYTKA Pattern

Make Your Scrap Fabric

To start making your fabric, start by using the 2.5×2.5 quilting ruler to make as many full squares as you can. Once you run out of room for the 2.5×2.5 squares, move on to make 1.5×1.5 squares with the rest of the fabric. After this, “shred” the scraps by using your rotary cutter to just make random smaller pieces. This will be using inside the batting, since we are using our scraps creatively!

Pile your scraps neatly in the corner of your cutting mat and out of the way. You can use as many colors as you want. Or just complete this process for all the scraps in your bin and make scrappy yardage! I used denim, cotton, and a loosely woven cotton for this bag. I ended up using roughly 1 yard of scrap fabric.

Placing The Scrap Squares

Print or cut your pattern out, and begin to place the squares around the edges of your pattern. Make sure you add one extra row around the edge to allow for the rows to be sewn together. You can always add an additional row in between if needed, but adding one row extra will help prevent this.

Place the squares around the pattern, leaving enough room for seam allowance by adding the extra row. You can make patterns with your squares if desired, but not required.

Sewing The Scraps

Like quilting, starts to sew at 1/4 inch seam allowance to attach the squares together in their rows, just like quilt blocks. Once you complete a row, press the seam allowance down and towards the bottom of the strip. Using steam on cotton and denim allows for a crisp line as well. Sew your rows together with the same 1/4 inch seam allowance.

Note, if you are following the pattern, the middle rows start higher than the the bottom rows. you can pin this together before you sew to prevent confusion.

Compare the sewn squares to the patten to ensure the edges go past the pattern.

Once you have sewn the rows together, your bag should extend past the pattern outline slightly. This is okay, as it will be trimmed after quilting.

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Quilting the Scraps

For this earth day project, I decided to to forgo the quilt batting and use what I already had in my house. Plastic bags! All quilt batting is in many projects is polyester. Polyester is a plastic, so in my mind, using plastic bags instead reuses them in a unique way and keeps them out of the landfill! I shared how to do the full process on my Patreon page!

For quilting the scrap bag, I chopped up the bags and filled the space. I also filled some of the bags with fabric scraps, just to keep using the scraps in their entirety! Pin through the layers to stabilize and keep the pieces together. There is a quilting pattern included in the TYTKA Studio pattern, and this is the one I used. You can quilt through the paper, or put the pieces and quilt around the curve.

Repeat the same cutting, placing, and quilting process on the other piece of the bag.

Finishing the Bag

For finishing the TYTKA Studio Noodle bag, just follow the rest of the instructions! I did end up lining the bag per the instructions with the remaining blue lining for another layer, and to finish the edges. It turned out great! The plastic bags made it a little hard to fold the edges over, but other than that, it was a breeze!

Final Product!

Viola! She’s done! Your very own scrap bag! You’ll be able to repeat this technique with any scrap item you make in your own projects. For me, starting small to make sure I liked the way the pieced fabric looked worked out great. It also allowed me to make a few mistakes so I can learn along the way!

Want to make your own bag? The TYTKA Studio bag was a great project. Or check out the Mini Sling Bag for another great little bag to make from your scraps! Plus, these bags are perfect for summer and can match your sewing projects to use all the scraps from your project.

I hope this post gave you inspiration to explore sewing in a unique way, and sewing an accessory! Be sure to tag your photos with #SewingBestie on IG and tag @just.lilliaa so I can see what you make!