Using your stash to make improvisational quilts

A friend in my book club just adopted a baby boy so, to welcome him of course I need to make a quilt!  I started racking my brain to think of the perfect pattern when an end of bolt in my stash caught my eye – the Dr. Seuss Book Cover Adventure Panel, only 5 books on this end of bolt – but that is perfect for a baby quilt that can later be a reading mat or blanket.  I also had a bright Island Batik strip set – minus the yellow strips that were used in another baby blanket – that coordinated with the bright colors in the book.

The book covers provided a good square for the center of a modified log cabin block – just pick two colors and use two strips of each color to go around each book to frame the books.  Next stack the remaining strips and cut with a rotary cutter making different sizes of rectangles and then sewing them randomly end to end to form a long chain that was 2.5 inches wide.    Lay the books out with two at the top, one in the middle and two at the bottom then sew the chain to the bottom of the book in the top left-hand corner of the quilt.  Cut the chain “tail” off so that it is the same size as the book block then sew the chain to the bottom of that block two more times then add the book that you want in the bottom left-hand corner.  Do the same with the books on the right-hand side of the quilt.  Then add six rows to the top and bottom of the middle book.  Sew the three sections together and you have a quilt top.  I folder the leftover chain in half with wrong sides together and used this as my binding to continue the scrappy look.   I finished piecing and quilting in a day and it took me two days for the binding to be complete (just working on the hand sewing at night).  

This was a fast and easy improvisational quilt that goes with the book club theme.  What Improvisational quilts have you made without a pattern using fabric you already have in your stash?