Most of us have a good pile of orphan blocks left over from various projects. Here’s the box with most of mine–there are a few in other locations 😀
Typically, I use mine for donation quilts. I’ve used the Circle of Nine idea.
Sometimes I have just arranged them on the design wall then filled in around them with background fabric.
Splendid Stars, 51″ x 53″
Sometimes I’ve even cut them into circles to applique onto a quilted background.
Donation Quilts for Ronald McDonald House
But still, there’s a big box full of them. 
Then my friend Jerri told me she had made some of her orphan blocks into a quilt back! Great idea!
The next time I had a quilt needing a back, I took the blocks from the top of the pile and sewed them together. Then I surrounded them with pieces of quilt backing left from other projects.
Quilt back with a center of orphan blocks
Voila! It may be more “interesting” than beautiful, but it used up a lot of orphans and scraps. And it’s done!
Zippy Quilts 
Yay you! But gosh, I don’t have orphan blocks as you do. Wow! Maybe I’m doing something wrong, but I can only come up with a half dozen or so. Usually, I have just one of a leftover block – one I didn’t like after I’d made it – so it gets added to the backing, to use up right away. But you’ve got some good ideas here for making great use of orphans! I’ll keep them in mind should I ever have enough for a quilt.
I’m afraid the excess of orphan blocks is just a symptom of other things. Like, when I finish a quilt I just want to get a piece of backing fabric and go on to the next quilt, so I don’t often piece in the leftover blocks. Maybe I’ll start making more of an effort to do that so I don’t continue to add to the orphan pile.
Your creations make me so happy 🥰
I am blown away by the idea of using orphan blocks for backing! What a great idea! And I agree with Cheryl…your creations make me happy too.
I can’t believe I never thought of it! It’s good to have inventive quilting friends 🙂
I enjoyed seeing how you use the orphan blocks. Mine end up in crumb blocks if they are small. I still have a rather LARGE (18″) one on my design wall from a Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt that must be at least 6 years old. One of these days I will make it into a pillow. I like your “circle of nine” setting a lot. Thanks for sharing all your ideas.
Circle of Nine isn’t my original idea, though I like it a lot, too. There’s a book by that name where I got the idea. Thanks for commenting.
Thanks. And please “steal” anything you want because we both know there is nothing new, so these are not “my” ideas.
I agree that it is a good idea to use orphan blocks on the reverse side of the quilt. There is a drawback, though. It takes time to piece them together to make the backing. When I was a new quilter I always used the leftover blocks on the back. Lately I have become lazy. I shall try to change my ways.
I just did a second backing to get rid of orphan blocks, and it did take quite a while. However, I was able again to use leftover backing pieces as well, so it was satisfying 🙂
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