What did I do yesterday? or How to Piece Batting Scraps.

Yesterday ... well, I pieced batting :)

I save the strips of batting that come when you trim the edges of quilts.  These are usually anywhere from 2 to 4 inches wide, but some can be about a foot or more.

I start by sorting and  making sure my strips are from the same type and color of batting.
Then I lightly iron them so that they dont' have any major wrinkles and will lie flat.

Then I find two with straight edges and I use a large zig zag to sew the edges together.  I butt the edges together as I put it under the presser foot so that there will not be a ridge or bump on the seam line.

If I don't have straight edges, then I will cut them so they are straight, or overlap the edges of two pieces and cut through the overlap.  This makes two edges that will butt together nicely to make a flat seam - even if it's a wavy seam, it won't show as long as it's not bumpy.

After a bit of this .. you have a nice flat piece of batting that can be used.

not quite enough pieced together yet.

nice big piece for my project.

close up of seams.

I used mine yesterday for a quilted tree skirt to go on the small Christmas tree that we purchased this year and is on a microwave cart in our dining room. I had the top pieced a week or so before Christmas, but never got around to getting it quilted an on the tree.  So I went ahead and basted ....

and then took it to the machine and zig zag quilted all the radius seams ... and used a narrow bias binding for the binding, although I turned it all to the back except for the center circle.

And that's how I spent most of yesterday.