Gifted Scraps, Strips, Crumbs & Strings..What to Do??

You may remember my “Please Don’t Feed the Quilter!!” post a few months ago.

If not, you can catch it HERE!

With a nice stretch of time at home, I had tackled the “DARK SIDE” of the quilting studio..the corner of the basement where things brought home from trips, and things that had arrived on my doorstep had been piled waiting for a chance to become something – to be made sense of, to be usable!


And when all was said and done, I was completely overwhelmed at the amount of little stuff…gifted stuff…that I had been….ahem…BLESSED with!

It’s always funny, when I show up to teach a class or give a lecture, to stand there while the guild members bring up a huge box with the exclamation “This is for YOU from all of US!”  And I smile…..and secretly think “Oh, my goodness, there is great stuff in here, but the sorting is going to take HOURS and DAYS!”

SO much of a GOOD THING!

It’s hard to see what is in this clear tote….but it is heavy.  And full.  Tons of variety, great fabrics….but have mercy!  How could it get into this state in the first place?  I can see why quilters want to give up and unload their burdens by gifting them away. 

My plan on bringing this stuff up to the cabin was not only to get it under control, but I have a plan to use a good chunk of it right off the bat.  I have a quilt that wants a piano key border.  I also want to do some log cabins.

My 1.5” strips at home are not that plentiful because I have been using them.  So right away I have a plan to make a dent in these.  But it’s going to take a lot of work to get them into usable status.

Want to know how to quickly eliminate some scraps?  CHOOSE a quilt pattern and start cutting for that one!  Right off, you’ll get rid of find a place for these lovelies!

It starts like this:

Put a handful of scraps on the ironing board.

Press.  And have 3 containers near your ironing board.  One for crumbs.  One for strings.  AND A BIG TRASH CAN!

This is why I like to tackle my scraps as they happen.  Deal with them as you make them…don’t wait until you have boxes and baskets and the task seems too daunting because you’d rather after all be actually piecing right?  

If a scrap measures something I already use, set it aside in that pile.  This strip is 1.5” already.  Into the 1.5” pile it goes.

Same with this one..it’s already 2.5”  I started a pile of these.

In this bag of stuff there were strips LESS than 3/4” wide!  You can’t sew 1/4” seams on a 1/2” strip.  That should have hit the trash before it hit this bag…discard stuff you will NOT sew with.  Fill a dog bed, whatever, get rid of it.

Big pieces are being set aside for cutting piano key strips.

But the small stuff.  Oy vey!  Why is all this little stuff shoved into a bag with the big stuff?

Some for the crumb box, some for the strings…

What is the difference between a string and a crumb?

It’s an iffy answer, but it’s mostly like this.  Strings can be used as crumbs, but crumbs have a harder time being used as strings because they are too short, too fat and are better left in the crumbs box.

In this photo…the two middle pieces are designated for the string basket.  The cream one is narrow and longish, and so is the one under it, but the others?  Ehhhh….crumbs.

Left over triangles and such also go in my crumbs box.  Triangles are NOT technically strings, so they work better as crumbs, but if I am piecing string blocks on the diagonal and need triangles for corners, they jump from crumb status back to strings.  Get it? 

I do use crumbs A LOT, especially in my paper piecing of little scrap blocks.  I find paper piecing an easy way to use up little pieces without having to rotary cut them down to any size first...so these are going into the flying geese strips I showed LAST NIGHT.

Pile of crumbs, and pile or strips waiting to be cut down.

((Oh, Canada!!))

Remember, NONE of this procedure would be necessary if things were dealt with as scraps happened.  All of these things left from other projects should have been cut down at the end of the day, or at the end of the project, not stuffed in a tote for “Some Day.”

Laying scraps on the die.

Rolling them through.

Ready to sew!

If you have boxes and bins and totes and buckets and barrels of untamed scraps.  Start today.  Pull one handful.  Iron it.  Sort it.  Discard what you don’t want, cut down what you do want --- and pledge to yourself that from now on you will handle the scraps as they happen, not shove them back for later.

Because we’d ALL rather be really sewing than dealing with Scrap Management on an overwhelming level!

Wow, does this post sound like I’ve given you all a chewing out? LOL!  I hope not.  I want to make things easier for you.  I want you to be able to get as much out of your fabric as you can.  I want you to be able to SEW instead of spending days at the ironing board and cutting table trying to make sense out of years worth of scraps stuffed in a box.

For more info on getting your scrap stash under control, you’ll find my Scrap User’s System article under the Tips & Techniques tab at the top of the blog!  Have you re-read it lately?

IT WORKS!

Have a great Quilty Thursday, everyone!

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