Deken van Restjes: The Ultimate Guide to Making a Beautiful Patchwork Quilt from Fabric Scraps
There is something deeply satisfying about looking at a pile of fabric scraps — the leftovers from old projects, the remnants of clothes that no longer fit, the pieces cut away from curtains and cushion covers — and seeing not waste, but possibility. A deken van restjes, or scrap quilt, is one of the oldest and most beloved traditions in textile craft. It transforms what would otherwise be discarded into something warm, useful, and often strikingly beautiful. If you have ever wanted to make one but felt overwhelmed by where to begin, this guide is for you.
We will walk through everything: the history and meaning behind scrap quilts, the types of fabric that work best, how to plan your design, the techniques for cutting and sewing, how to assemble and finish your quilt, and finally how to care for it so it lasts for decades. Whether you are a complete beginner or someone who has dabbled in sewing before, you will find practical advice here that you can use straight away.
What Is a Deken van Restjes?
The term “deken van restjes” is Dutch for a blanket or quilt made from scraps and remnants. It belongs to the broader family of patchwork quilts, which have been made in various forms across almost every culture in the world. In the Netherlands and Belgium, the tradition has roots going back centuries, when fabric was expensive and nothing was wasted. Every piece of worn-out clothing, every offcut from a sewing project, found its way into a new form.
But a scrap quilt is not simply an act of frugality. There is an emotional dimension to it as well. When you incorporate fabric from an old baby onesie, a beloved shirt, or a grandmother’s apron, you are weaving memory into the object. Many people who make a deken van restjes describe the finished piece as a kind of textile diary — a record of years lived through the medium of cloth.
Today, the craft has experienced a significant revival. Younger makers are drawn to it for reasons that include sustainability, the desire to work with their hands, and a reaction against the disposability of fast fashion. Making a quilt from scraps is one of the most concrete and creative ways to give fabric a second life.
Gathering Your Materials
The first and most enjoyable step is gathering your fabric. This is also the step where many people feel a little paralyzed, because the rules seem unclear. The good news is that there are very few hard rules when it comes to a scrap quilt. The whole point is to work with what you have.
That said, a few practical guidelines will save you frustration later.
Cotton is your best friend. If you are a beginner, try to work primarily with cotton fabric. It is easy to cut, easy to press, and it behaves predictably when you sew it. Quilting cotton, the kind sold specifically for patchwork projects, is ideal, but cotton from old shirts, bed sheets, and dresses works just as well. It tends to fray less than loosely woven fabrics and holds its shape nicely in the finished quilt.
Be cautious with stretch fabrics. Jersey, lycra, and other stretchy materials can be incorporated, but they require more care and are not recommended for your first project. They can distort your patches and make it difficult to keep the quilt flat.
Consider weight and thickness. Ideally, the fabrics in a single quilt should be of similar weight. Mixing a very lightweight silk with a heavy denim, for instance, puts uneven stress on your seams and can cause puckering. If you do want to use a heavier fabric like denim or corduroy, try to ensure that the neighboring patches are similarly sturdy.
Pre-wash everything. Before you cut a single piece, wash and dry all your fabric. This ensures that any shrinkage happens before you sew rather than after, which could distort your finished quilt. It also removes any sizing or finishes from the fabric that might affect how well it handles.
Beyond fabric, you will need a rotary cutter and cutting mat (or good fabric scissors), quilting rulers, sewing thread in a neutral color, pins or fabric clips, an iron and ironing board, batting or wadding for the middle layer, and fabric for the backing.
Planning Your Design
This is where a scrap quilt can either feel overwhelming or wonderfully liberating, depending on how you approach it. Unlike a planned quilt where you buy specific fabrics for a specific pattern, a scrap quilt asks you to work with what exists. That means the design needs to be flexible enough to accommodate a wide variety of colors and prints.
The classic nine-patch block is an excellent starting point. It consists of nine equal squares sewn together in a three-by-three grid. It is simple, quick, and endlessly variable. You can make each block from completely different fabrics, or you can create a subtle rhythm by repeating certain colors or prints across multiple blocks.
The disappearing nine-patch takes the basic block a step further. You sew the nine-patch, press it, and then make two cuts to divide it into four smaller sections, which you rearrange and re-sew. The result looks far more complex than the effort involved and is a great way to get variety from a simple starting point.
Log cabin blocks are another traditional favorite. A central square — often red, symbolizing the hearth — is surrounded by successive strips of fabric that spiral outward. Because the strips can be any width and length, log cabin blocks are particularly forgiving of odd-shaped scraps.
The tumbling blocks pattern creates an optical illusion of three-dimensional cubes. It requires precise cutting of diamond shapes in three tones — light, medium, and dark — but the result is dramatic and eye-catching.
Scrappy strips require no precise block construction at all. You simply sew strips of varying widths and lengths together until you have pieces large enough to cut your blocks from, then assemble the blocks into a quilt top. It is the most forgiving of all approaches and works beautifully when you have a lot of small, irregular pieces.
Whichever design you choose, it helps to lay out your pieces on a flat surface — a design wall made from flannel or batting pinned to a wall is ideal — before you commit to sewing. This gives you a sense of the overall composition and lets you move things around without unpicking seams.
Cutting Your Fabric
Precision in cutting pays dividends when you are sewing. Even a few millimeters of difference between patches can cause your blocks to come out uneven, which compounds across the quilt top into noticeable distortion.
A rotary cutter and self-healing cutting mat make this stage much faster and more accurate than scissors alone. A long quilting ruler — typically thirty centimeters or sixty centimeters — lets you cut multiple layers at once, which saves significant time when you are cutting dozens of identical squares.
For a standard nine-patch block intended to finish at fifteen centimeters square (before borders), you would cut nine squares measuring six centimeters plus your seam allowance on each side. The standard seam allowance in quilting is one quarter of an inch, or approximately six millimeters. This means each square should be cut to roughly seven and a half centimeters.
Always cut a few test pieces, sew them together, and measure the result before cutting all your fabric. It is much easier to adjust at this stage than after you have cut three hundred squares.
Sewing Your Blocks
Sewing patchwork is primarily about consistency. You want every seam to be exactly the same width, which keeps your blocks a uniform size and allows them to align neatly when you sew them together.
Most sewing machines have a presser foot that is close to a quarter inch in width, and many quilters use the edge of this foot as a guide. If yours does not, you can place a strip of masking tape on the machine bed exactly a quarter inch from the needle to act as a guide.
Chain piecing is a technique that saves both time and thread. Instead of sewing one pair of patches, cutting the thread, and starting again, you feed pairs of patches through the machine one after another without lifting the foot or cutting between them. You end up with a chain of sewn pairs connected by small lengths of thread, which you then clip apart. For a quilt with many identical blocks, this can cut your sewing time significantly.
Press your seams as you go. After sewing each seam, press it with a hot iron to set the stitches and make the fabric lie flat. The traditional quilting convention is to press seams to one side rather than open, which creates a stronger seam. When two seams need to meet at an intersection, pressing them in opposite directions allows them to nest against each other, reducing bulk and helping the intersection lie flat.
Assembling the Quilt Top
Once all your blocks are sewn, the next stage is to sew them together into rows, and then sew the rows together to form the complete quilt top.
Lay out all your blocks in the arrangement you have planned. Take a photograph of this layout — it is easy to lose track of which block goes where once you start picking them up to sew. Number the blocks with small pieces of masking tape if necessary.
Sew the blocks together in horizontal rows, pressing all the seams in a single row in the same direction. When you sew row two, press its seams in the opposite direction. This alternating pattern means that when adjacent rows are sewn together, the seams nest, the intersections lie flat, and the quilt top has an even, smooth appearance.
After assembling the main body of the quilt, many makers add one or more borders. A simple border of a single fabric ties the composition together visually and gives the quilt a finished, intentional look. You can use a coordinating print, a solid color that pulls out a tone from the patchwork, or even more patchwork in a different scale.
Making the Quilt Sandwich
A quilt has three layers: the top, the batting in the middle, and the backing. Sandwiching and basting these layers together correctly is essential for a quilt that lies flat and doesn’t shift during quilting.
Cut your batting and backing several centimeters larger than your quilt top on all sides, to allow for any shifting during the quilting process.
Lay the backing right side down on a large flat surface — a clean floor works well if you don’t have a table large enough. Smooth it completely flat and secure the edges with masking tape or binder clips. Lay the batting on top, smoothing out any wrinkles. Finally, center the quilt top right side up on top of the batting.
Baste the three layers together. You can do this with safety pins placed every ten to fifteen centimeters across the entire quilt, or with a basting spray designed for quilts. The goal is to hold the layers together firmly so that nothing shifts while you quilt.
Quilting: Stitching the Layers Together
Quilting is the process of stitching through all three layers to hold them together permanently. It also adds texture and visual interest to the finished piece.
The simplest approach for a beginner is to quilt in the ditch — stitching directly along the seam lines of your patchwork. The stitching disappears into the seams and is barely visible on the finished quilt. It is quick, effective, and doesn’t require any additional marking.
Free-motion quilting uses a special presser foot and drops the feed dogs on your sewing machine, allowing you to move the fabric in any direction and create freehand designs. It takes practice but offers tremendous creative freedom. Swirls, leaves, feathers, and stippling patterns all look beautiful on a scrap quilt.
Straight-line quilting at regular intervals — say, every five centimeters across the entire quilt — creates a clean, modern look and is simple to achieve with a walking foot and a little careful measuring.
Binding: The Finishing Touch
Binding covers the raw edges of your quilt and gives it a clean, durable edge. It is the last major step and also the one many quilters find most satisfying — it is the moment the quilt truly begins to look finished.
Cut strips of fabric about six and a half centimeters wide. For a scrap quilt, you might use a single fabric for a clean, uniform look, or sew together strips of different fabrics for a scrappy binding that extends the patchwork all the way to the edge.
Join the strips end to end until you have a length that goes all the way around the perimeter of the quilt with some extra. Fold the strip in half lengthwise and press it. Sew it to the front of the quilt with a quarter inch seam allowance, mitering the corners neatly. Then fold the binding to the back and hand-sew it down with a blind stitch.
Caring for Your Deken van Restjes
A well-made scrap quilt can easily last fifty years or more if it is cared for properly. Wash it gently in cool water on a delicate cycle and lay it flat or hang it to dry if possible, as tumble drying on high heat can break down the batting over time. Store it folded loosely or rolled rather than compressed tightly in a bag.
If your quilt incorporates vintage fabric or fabric with unknown provenance, consider hand washing it to be safe. Old fabrics can be more fragile than they appear, and a vigorous machine wash can cause them to tear or discolor.
Why Making a Deken van Restjes Matters
Beyond the practical and aesthetic dimensions, there is a philosophical case to be made for the scrap quilt. In an era of overproduction and easy disposability, choosing to make something from what already exists is a quietly radical act. It slows you down. It makes you look more carefully at what you have. It connects you to a long line of makers who came before — people who understood, out of necessity, that nothing good should be wasted.
Every scrap you incorporate into your quilt is a piece of fabric that doesn’t end up in a landfill. More than that, it becomes part of an object that might outlast you, that might warm the people you love, that carries within its seams the texture of days already lived.
That is what a deken van restjes really is: not just a blanket, but a kind of archive. Begin with whatever you have. The rest will come together in its own time.
