Last night I got the itch to sort my scraps. These scraps are smaller than fat quarters, mostly strips, some chunky bits and a few triangles. I've been storing the scraps in two ordinary plastic grocery bags, one for warm colors and the other for cool colors. They're mainly solids and tone-on-tones. I love novelty prints, but I get tired of them once I've finished a quilt. (I donate those scraps to places like Project Linus. I'm sure the quilters love the cute pieces, and some lucky kids will get adorable quilts from them.)Based somewhat on Bonnie Hunter's Scrap Saver System, I created my own categories to suit my personal quilting style: less than 2.5", 2.5"+, 3.5"+, 4.5"+, 6.5"+, and 9"-16". To save money and to get started right away, I sorted them into containers that I already had--brown lunch bags!
Last night I sorted the warm colors: red, pink, burgundy, orange, brown, yellow, etc. I started to trim the pieces to the nearest quarter-inch but many needed to be ironed first and I didn't want to get bogged down, so I "scrapped" that idea within a few minutes. I finished sorting the warm colors in about an hour.
The fullest bag was the 4.5"+, and I will probably start there for the next scrap quilt. I had a hard time getting to sleep last night, thinking about what pattern to use for the quilt. At lunchtime I took a look at Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville website for inspiration. I'm pretty sure I'm going to do a Maverick Star--a Liberated Quiltmaking version of Sawtooth Star. I'm thinking about a palette of red, white and blue for the Fourth of July.
Tonight I'll go through the cool colors: blues, greens, turquoises, purples, blacks, etc.
I have been working on getting organized for about a year now and not showing much progress (just kidding) I do like to hear how others are dealing with their over flow and learn from them.
ReplyDeleteThe other day I went through a tote of small pieces that I was going to strip cut into Bonnie style sizes. I decided instead to sort by color and am glad I did. I have pulled several new TO-DO's from the material and have even more ideas for later. IF I had 'cut' into it I would be limited as to projects.
My new goal is to shop from stash and then strip cut the left overs as I use them. I hope your sorting goes the way you want it to. cheryl