Hey everyone. Today you will learn how to turn batting offcuts into a quilted scrap basket that lives by your machine as a thread-catcher.
Thread tails are everywhere. Snips land on the floor. Crumbs hide under your chair. A basket fixes all of that.
Batting is the secret. A basket with no padding flops over in a day. Add batting in the walls, and it stands up on its own and holds its shape.
For this one, I reach for 80/20 cotton-poly batting — 80 percent cotton, 20 percent polyester. You get the soft hand of cotton plus a little spring from the poly. It quilts flat and survives daily squishing.
Materials
- Batting offcuts in 80/20 cotton-poly, about 18 by 24 inches total
- Outer fabric: two fat quarters or matching scraps
- Lining fabric: two fat quarters, in a light color so you can see scraps inside
- All-purpose sewing thread, 50 weight
- A size 80/12 or 90/14 universal needle
- Rotary cutter, mat, and ruler, or fabric scissors
- Pins or fabric clips, chalk or a fabric marker
- An iron and pressing surface
- Optional: a fabric strip for a hanging loop, about 1 by 6 inches
How to do it
- Cut your pieces. For a basket about 5 inches wide, deep, and tall, cut four outer panels and one bottom at 6 by 6 inches each. Cut the same five pieces from lining, and the same five from batting.
- Pick the right batting weight. Here is the test I use. Squeeze the batting. Low-loft 80/20 is perfect here. It gives body without bulk in the seams. High-loft and puffy will fight you at the corners. Save that stuff for stuffing projects. For walls, you want flat and steady.
- Make your little sandwiches. Lay each outer panel wrong side up. Lay a batting piece on top. Smooth it flat with your hand. Just like that, you have a padded panel. Do all five pieces.
- Quilt the panels lightly. Stitch a simple grid or a few straight lines through fabric and batting, about 1 to 1 1/2 inches apart. Use a stitch length of about 2.5 to 3.0, roughly 8 to 10 stitches per inch. Dense quilting makes stiffer walls. Wide quilting keeps them softer. Completely up to you.
- Sew the outer box. Place two quilted panels right sides together. Sew one side with a 1/4-inch seam. Add the next panel until you have a ring of four. Then sew the bottom to that ring, one side at a time. Slow down at the corners. The batting makes them thick, and rushing is how needles snap.
- Sew the lining box the same way. Build the lining box from the unpadded pieces. Leave a 3-inch opening in one bottom seam for turning. Do not skip it. I have. It is not fun to fix.
- Put the boxes together. Slip the outer box inside the lining box, right sides together. Match the top edges and side seams. Clip all the way around. Sew the top edge with a 1/4-inch seam.
- Turn it right side out. Reach through that opening in the lining. Pull the whole basket through, gentle and slow. Poke the corners out with a chopstick. Press the top edge flat.
- Close and finish. Stitch the lining opening closed. Push the lining down into the basket. Topstitch around the top, about 1/8 inch from the fold. Fold the top down an inch for a cuff if you like. It shows off the lining. Super duper cute.
Tips and variations
Size it for your table. Want a smaller catcher for thread only? Cut 4-inch panels. Want a bigger scrap basket? Cut 8-inch panels and add an extra line of quilting per wall. The math is the same.
Franken-batting works great here. Small offcuts too little for a quilt? Butt them edge to edge on a panel and zigzag over the join. Once it is quilted, nobody will ever know. We're not reinventing the wheel here. We are just using what we already have.
Add a loop or a weight. Sew that loop into the top seam to hang it by your machine. Or slip washers into the bottom before closing, so it will not tip.
Do not worry about perfect corners. Batting is forgiving, y'all. Your corners might be a touch soft. Your lines might wander a hair. It does not have to be perfect. You are your own worst critic. This basket is here to catch thread, not win a ribbon. Take your time. It is not a race.
If I can do this, y'all can do it. Grab those 80/20 offcuts from the bin and give them a second job. Thanks for sewing along with me. We'll see you next time. Bye.
Shop Hobbs Heirloom Bleached 80/20 Batting Package at Linda's Electric Quilters.
