scrap management 2

More on my scrap management.  Above you can see my stacks of squares.  I cut them in whole and half sizes, 1.5" up to about 12" depending on my mood of the day.  I don't do 5.5" I cut them down to 5" since that fits most patterns.  The 1.5" I use as my leader enders.

Anything that was longer than wide pretty much went into the strips pile.  Much more on that in later posts.

As I was going through things I remembered I had started collecting squares in the past.

You can see by the dust, that was a long time ago. 

When I dumped it out I found all bunch of sizes of squares.

And apparently I was insane, because I had a collection of 1" squares.  I've kept them, but I don't know what I'll do with them.

This series of photos explains how I cut up my scraps into squares.

I find the largest square I can cut out of a shape and go from there.

I just started sewing some small pieces together.  These were some little Kaffe Fassett pieces I had.

This pile of old and pretty soft flowers made me happy. 

Also in the box were these pieces.

You may be wondering why I have so much vintage fabric. 
1. I inherited my mother's stash and that was 20 years ago.
2. People have started giving me fabric.
3. The call of the thrift stores.

Scrap Management, The Never Ending Story

This was my mega bin of scraps.  It is literally the first box I bought to hold fabric.   I've greatly outgrown it....

I had originally brought it into the house because I had some scrappy sewing to do for a couple of people.

And once it was in the house, I decided to see if I could get through it all and clean it up. 

Going through these fabrics brings back quilts and memories.  The animal ones were for a friend's baby quilt.  Said baby is 14.

This pink is one of those prints that don't seem to die.

The stars are from one of the very first quilts I ever made.

This pile were from WD's baby quilt. (another 14 y/o)

Roses from a quilt for my MIL

It truly felt like I'd never get to the bottom.  Someone on IG pointed out that the fabric probably "fluffs up" when the weight is taken off.  I think it multiplies when I'm not looking.

My table while I was sorting/trimming.

Anything that was strippy got piled on the ironing board.

I did actually get to the bottom, after a few days.  A few episodes of Star Trek (the original series) and one Bruce Lee movie.

This stack was all going back into the fabric boxes.  I decided they were too big to bother cutting up.

Alf liked the strips

When all was said and done, I only kept the following piles as "scraps"

I also do keep selvedges.  Not that I use them much...

And piles of squares.

Next blog post I'll talk about what I did with all the scraps and how I "manage" them.

Stash Management - It will take FOREVER

Ready for some real life?

I've decided to go through my fabrics and do some scrap management. 

You see, recently I was gifted a bunch of fabric from a couple of different people.  I had the job of going through it, refolding, (keeping what I wanted) and then figuring out what to do with it all.  One kid notably asked "Is this what we're going to have to do when you die?"

Now, I have no plans on dying anytime soon, but it did get me thinking that really, my craft/fabric stuff is pretty chaotic.  And whenever I work on something, I often wish it was more organized.

So to that end I started cutting up some scraps this past Sunday.

 They have been stuffed in a small plastic box since *this project*.

 I'm pretty much using Bonnie Hunter's method.  But really, its just cutting scraps into usable sizes and shapes.  i.e. squares and strips.

We have an unattached garage with a finished upper room.  It holds a ping pong table, a foosball table, some chairs and a couple of couches, lots of boxes, and 90% of my fabric.

Not all the stuff pictured here is fabric. But most of it is.

So I've started going through it all.   Since I took this picture, the yellows have been kicked out of this box to make room for more reds.

I'll need a whole bigger box for blues, soon.

Other random piles. Pinks, greens, black and white, stripes, fruit.  I don't have a great system yet, but I'm just getting started.  Also pictured is a random ping pong paddle and Lego creations.

This is my growing pile of scraps to be cut down.  I decided to organize all the fabrics, pulling the scraps along the way.  Then the fabric will be organized and I can cut scraps as I have time.    Every time I go up to sort fabric, my definition of "scrap to be cut down" changes.  Bigger, smaller, how much I like it, what I think I'll use it for....

Old man Ajax joined me upstairs for a while.

He's a good companion.

And just how am I supposed to classify fabric that looks like this?

How do you deal with scraps?