Serendipity quilts

I posted this on our sister site and wanted to share it here too.


Serendipity means a "happy accident" or "pleasant surprise"; specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful without looking for it.

My little sewing group was discussing the fact that "scrap" quilt is a bit of a misnomer. The very word "scrap" seems to de-value the quilt. The definition of scrap is "Discarded waste material".
Come on, our scraps are not waste and we do not discard them. They also involve as much or more work than many of our quilts made from yardage. But a lot of folks look down their noses at them.

So I much prefer "Serendipity" quilts. A "pleasant surprise". I think it fits these quilts to a tee. We are finding something good and useful and it is always a pleasant surprise to see them finished. Think that is what I will call mine from now on. Serendipity quilts....... I like it....... it makes me smile .......

I like it too TMQ ! I really like a lot of scrap...er Serendipity ... quilts. For my taste though I have always found this a bit of a misnomer anyway, I don't find" scrap" quilts , as in using what ever you have left over from other things , very attractive at all. When I look at the " scrap" quilts that I like I note that where they may have lots of different fabrics in them , they are really done in a planned way . Colours and fabrics that match quite well for example . I have heard of people just piling their scarps together and whatever they grab gets sewn together . THAT would be a surprise but not one that I would like . To me a quilt has to look attractive, not just serve a purpose. You could use a horse blanket for that !!

Itty bitty quilts? Pieces of pieces quilts? Cute name TxMary and nice than scrap quilts, you might just start a new trend!

I agree! Except....lol....the "ole folks" group at our church is called the Serendipity group. So....it kind of has that connotation for me personally, but I like your thinking!

Definitely better than scrap or crumb. DH always wants me to make these quilts, then objects to them being charity quilts because of the many hours I put into them, especially ones like my present one and my axehead/applecore quilt.

That's what I mean, they do take a LOT of time. And since I tend toward the whole "organized" scrap thing like HP, just laying them out takes me a while sometimes. And since at some point that fabric was purchased, the last cut of it is not any cheaper than the first cut so it is not "waste" to me.

I feed scraps to the animals, I think better of my serendipity quilts (even the old ones TMM )

I have read that a true scrap quilt is made by picking up a piece of fabric without trying to do any matching. I suppose that's ok, but I much prefer what I've always heard "controlled scrappy." I like the term serendipity too.

I have seen folks on TV talking about grabbing scraps from a bag without looking. that is definitely NOT my style.

I tried but can't either Marynel, just not my way, it has to look some what decent or I'll get another one. Norma

Wow, I agree with everyone else who's said they can't "just grab".

I am not a fan of 'scrap' quilts and I'm sure it's because of the pictures I have in my mind of the poor quilts that have been put together without thought to color balance (that's really what it boils down to for me). The term 'controlled scrappy' is what I've always used for the rare times I've gone down that road. And you know what? Those quilts are 10 times the amount of work a "pattern" quilt is!

TxM, I've already floated the idea of calling them Serendipity Quilts to BossLady. I'll do what I can here to circulate this new and evah-so-appropriate description!

I am happy y'all like Serendipity quilts. Funny how so many of us like to have "control" over our serendipitous pieces of fabric.

I am playing with some serendipitous pieces today. We'll see what happy accident comes out of it. (Okay, it is a long word. Almost as bad as Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, but not quite. )

I just made a "serendipity" quilt and my pieces were just grabbed at random, but I had to chuckle at some of the others that were making the same quilt and they were trying to lay it out and matching up finally they gave up and just put laid them out.... so far 3 of us have made it and they look really nice. This was mine


one of the gals bordered hers in brown and I am not sure what the 3rd gal was doing.... hopefully I will see it tonight...

That is so pretty. I love the prairie points you did.

I make those quilts alot! In fact I find pattern quilts BORING to work on but beautiful to look at. Mine are color compositions. It does take some effort to put odd fabrics in the right place so the whole thing is pleasing. So I will call them serendipitous quilts even if they came from the scrapbag.

Great quilt golo....I'm one of those that just finds it exhausting trying to make it look random as I struggle to pick fabrics.

Great quilt Golo, excellent pattern for a serendipity, did you not also do a swap with this pattern? I thought you all did a swap with this block as well?

golo wrote:

I just made a "serendipity" quilt and my pieces were just grabbed at random, but I had to chuckle at some of the others that were making the same quilt and they were trying to lay it out and matching up finally they gave up and just put laid them out.... so far 3 of us have made it and they look really nice. This was mine


one of the gals bordered hers in brown and I am not sure what the 3rd gal was doing.... hopefully I will see it tonight...

I did two swaps with this one, Between....

Golo, that worked well.