Friday, June 15, 2012

Sorting Scraps

What justifies keeping a scrap?  Is it size, color, print, or just I like it?  I am sorting through three large, 13 gallon, trash bags of scraps and determining whether to keep them or send them out the door. I have set up drawers for strips of various sixes, squares  that are 2" or 3", orphan blocks and left over partially pieced things from other quilts, and pieces that are too big to throw away but need to be cut down.
I have no idea what I will do with most of these scraps and some may go in a drawer for now, but later go in the get rid of bag. Now when I say get rid of I do not mean in the trash. We have a lady at one of the LQS's in town that collects scraps and uses them to stuff dog beds so my get rid of scraps will be deposited there on my next trip to the store.
I have a hard time though determining what makes a piece to small to keep, I mean I could use some very small pieces in applique, but does that mean I should keep them all?  I am trying to keep only pieces that are 2" square or larger at the moment and that may change to be 3" depending on how full I find the drawers getting.  I mean I have a ton of fabric, so do I really need to keep all these little pieces?  Am I really going to use them up?
I do have a plan for the strips. I had fun making the strip quilt top a couple weeks ago and I plan to use up my strips to make another one.

3 comments:

  1. It's so hard to NOT keep scraps isn't it? I'm the same way. Lots of fabric but just can't throw any out. I see lots of scrap quilts in our future!

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  2. The size of scrap I keep seems to depend on my mood, at times. Sometimes I keep all of them, another day I think, I'll never use those, too small, and pitch them. I keep the long strings, but if it's less then 2", I use it for a leader in my sewing or I get rid of it. If I need a tiny piece for applique, I have a lot of other fabric I can snip a tiny piece from. For me, it comes down to how small a piece do I want to work with.

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  3. It is a hard call. I usually don not keep anything smaller than 2" square, strips I keep down to 1". I really need to stop buying and start finishing. LOL

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