Sunday, June 14, 2009

scraps

How do you feel about fabric scraps? How little is too little?

I have to admit that I have been saving every little piece of fabric that gets cut off of every project. Today was the day to deal with that. I had a Binky Patrol meeting (www.binkypatrol.org) and I had 3 hours to sit at the quilt shop and cut fabric so I figured I could easily work through 3 buckets of fabric scraps and organize them and cut them into useable sizes. HA>>> That's funny!

For some strange reason, nobody showed up today. Maybe it was the nice weather we are having or maybe because I forgot to send out a reminder, but for whatever reason, I was alone for 3 hours cutting fabric into 6 1/2 and 4 1/2 squares and the pieces that were too small were cut into strips. I sorted the pieces that were leftover binding. I like to cut my bindings 3 1/2 inches wide and have a whole pile of leftovers that will make a nice strip quilt of random pieces. I saved all of the too small pieces to use to stuff yet another pillow for my oh so spoiled dogs. They have quite a few sitting around the house and I find them sleeping on them most of the day.

But, at the end of the 3 hours, my scrap bucket was still full. How is that possible. I had a whole pile of 6 1/2 inch squares and twice that many 4 1/2 inch squares, but you wouldn't know that I even touched the bucket of scraps at all. Plus, there are two more boxes of scraps in the car.

I am betting I can get at least 4 quilt tops out of the scraps I cut today. That's exciting. Taking what otherwise would be trash and making something useful. Now, this is what quilting is about. It doesn't go as fast as taking the big pieces and cutting them and sewing them back together, but it feels really good.

I also was working in the sewing room today and came across a lot of unfinished projects that were started by someone else. I get a lot of those donated to me. It sure is easier to finish your own projects than try to figure out what someone else was thinking, especially when they don't put the pattern in with the project. I'm hoping this summer will be the summer of finishes. Some of these projects just need an extra border or two and they can be called done. I'm going to work them into the rotation of things to do.

I sure am having fun so far this summer.
Oh, and I took 9 quilts to church this morning :) That was fun too.

7 comments:

CynthiaDogMom said...

A piece of fabric must be at least 1.5" by 2" for me to keep it. If it's close to that, i.e., it's big enough for me to hold onto it while it goes under the presser foot, I toss it into the "crumbs" container--a see-through plastic food clamshell--for use as Bonnie Hunter describes at www.quiltville.com .

But if the fabric is a blah one, it's gonna need to be at least a 2" square.

Otherwise, the scrap will end up in my compost pile.

It has become a *lot* easier to toss little pieces now that I've been adding them to the compost. I finally woke up to that possibility in May 2008. Better late than never, mejor tarde que nunca, Besser spaet als nie, etc.

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