K-Roll

Well thanks so much everyone! The links are very helpful. Right now, the 'scraps' I do have fit into a gallon zip-loc bag, and I see that even that small amount is now jumbled-up in an unhelpful manner. So I will separate them by color into their own bags, and whew! no need to make HSTs except for the practice ones I am making now, out of a couple of the quarter-yards. My large pieces I can stack in a bin which is now full of - useless household odds and ends, you know the kind, old keys, office clips, the stuff that would drive Marie Kondo over the edge.

I have some small projects in mind for practice, such as potholders, place mats or chair pads. I hope to eventually recreate a quilt my grandmother made for me as a girl (which my mother tossed out when I was a teen) and possibly to try my hand at restoring a tattered old quilt from my husband's family. The key word is eventually, for "whipping things out" is not in my DNA, and I have to be cautious and watch my tendency to take shortcuts which circles back to my slow-as-molasses ways of working.

All great advice, and thank you for taking time to respond. (I'm thinking perhaps the Salvation Army will not get as many clothing items in the future, if I like the fabric!)

jmoore

k-roll, welcome to the QB. When I first started quilting about 5 years ago, I decided to only purchase fabric as I needed it for a specific project... what you will find is that your scraps will grow automatically with leftover pieces from your projects. I think you are smart to organize them from the get-go, it will promote good scrap habits.

I do not precut my scraps, as Jeanne stated, if you need a larger piece and you've already cut them down, you're stuck. I have sorted my sizes into separate totes and know exactly where to go if I need a certain size. Good luck.

paoberle

Don't cut your material, until,you know how you are going to use it. You cannot undo a cut! As for how small of a piece should you keep, only you can answer that question. I know how small of a piece I am willing to work with, so I don't keep tiny pieces of less than an inch. I also do not keep selvages or thread scraps.

Kris P

The vast majority of my early stash was remnants and red tag clearance yardage from JoAnn's. Now that I've been quilting for 5 years, and have been teaching EPP at my LQS, I find my preferences in fabric quality have changed. I rarely choose to use the bargain basement stuff I purchased early on. Some of it is just too difficult to stick a needle through repeatedly.
That being said, I have more than once spent $100 on scraps at the LQS. Almost all of my quilts are scrappy, so I love having a vast array of colors, and prints. Even just a little can be a welcomed addition to one of my quilts. My favorite EPP templates are 1 1/2 inch 60 degree diamonds, so a 2 inch strip is all that's needed to make those.
When I buy yardage, just for stash, it's rarely more than 1/2 yard. Do what makes you happy. It's your hobby. Just don't get so far a head of yourself that you feel it's a burden. Too much stash can really become a maintenance issue, and suck the joy out of it.

Karamarie

After I am finished with a quilt, I cut up anything smaller than a quarter of a yard into 5", 3" or 2 1/2" squares or strips. Right now my goal is to turn these pieces into scrappies - no more buying fabric until I have used up these precut pieces. Good luck to me on that goal, but I am going to really try. I store these precut pieces in small plastic totes, not sorted by color but by size.

K-Roll

Great tips! One of my quarter-yard pieces was a nice soft faded print, and now that I'm practicing with it I see that it's a real cheap piece of goods. No surprise it was on sale. I bet it was never off sale.

I'm lucky to have inherited my mother's "hand" for fabrics. That CPOG lured me with its soft blue. I should have paid more attention to its feel.

Judith1005

Hi K-Roll,

I probably wouldn't just cut the fabric you bought I to scraps until you are ready to use it. Believe me, scraps happen with every project you work on. I made the mistake of cutting bigger scraps to smaller sizes. And, yes, you guessed it, I could have used that bigger scrap for something. If you check out my QB blog. I have posted photos of how I store my scraps. I believe it's in the blog post "What's going on in my Corner of QB blogland". My bigger scraps or scraps waiting to be resized are the only ones I haven't pictured. They are stored in a med size fabric bin. And, the are threatening to over flow. Lol, I really need to do something with them soon. I am pre dominantly a scrappy quilter. I also don't agree with the statement, if you cut it, your kind of out if you need the bigger piece. I've been know to patch back together, depending on the print of course. My mom always made the statement, it really won't show once it's quilted. In that same blog post I mentioned about the scraps there is a red plus sign Quilt in the heading. One of the squares in that Quilt was pieced together from smaller pieces because I was short a square for that plus sign I bet you can't find which one it is. And, that Quilt was a gift for my mother. She loves it. I've also been known to double a thin piece of fabric or stabilize a thin piece of fabric to make it more usable. It just depends on how much in love with the fabric I am or weather I think it's worth seldveging. Sometimes, we all make a bad choice in fabric quality. There are also other ways to use fabrics your not happy with. Use them in smaller projects that won't get washed a lot. Oops, I guess I'm getting off topic. Sorry, I'm usually one of those people that buy smaller size cuts. Can I suggest, that instead of quarter size cuts, you buy 1\3 yard cuts. That way, when you square up, you will most always have a minimum of 9" wide to work with. JoAnn Fabrics is not very generous with their cuts. If you have to square up fabric and you've only bought a quarter yard, sometimes, depending on how straight the fabric is, you may only have 7 or 8" wide to work with. Believe me, it will make a difference. I know it does for me.

Just Me...

While I do make a lot of scrappy quilts, I do leave my fabric in the large pieces. Not only does it let me judge about how much I have of a particular fabric, but if I come across a quilt that uses a piece as the one constant, I like to have more of a variety to choose from.

When buying fabrics "just because" (going to back before I had my shop), I usually choose to buy 4-5 yards of a good background and 3 yards of larger prints. Tonals that aren't necessarily good for an outer border, etc. I will go 2-3 yards.

I store my fabrics by color.

K-Roll

Judith - great advice and thank you for mentioning the 1/3 yard idea. Plus, I will visit the blogs, I have not read them, so good to get pointed to them - I've been reading the various threads, not familiar with the blogs.

Justme - funny you mention 4-5 yards. My slipcover project, I didn't know how much to buy and took a wild guess at 5 yards. Thankfully that's about what I needed. Luck, that's all it was.

& everyone - share my JOY! Yesterday out of the blue I was given 8-10 wide rolls of varying yard lengths of silk. All silk. In beautiful deep solid colors, also prints and one roll looks like painted silk. Haven't fully unwrapped them, they were rolled up in cotton sheets and other protective fabrics. There is a roll of deep eggplant-purple (aubergine?) velvet that also might be silk - it's not stiff and very soft-feeling: this particular roll has lots and lots of yardage...

In addition, thrown in was about a foot-high stack of cotton fabric in different prints; there is a LOT of 2 of the prints which go together well and seems to have been intended for a quilt.

Aside from that, it all came with a vintage Singer I think 66 model (I posted in Vintage Machine forum) and cabinet.
When I first posted, I had been to the fabric store to buy scraps. 3 weeks later I have an avalanche, all free.
The unexpected bounty came from the home of a former quilter. I went to have lunch with a friend, who doesn't sew; and then one thing led to another (I drove her to meet a friend) and my car was loaded up. The person who gave it to me didn't know I would be with my friend, and didn't know I was a quilter. She said "we put everything on CL but you can't put this kind of stuff on CL, no one would buy it. If you want it, take it." (??? I told her oh yes you could but she said just take it.)

This is all meant for something. It's not all meant for me: I think it's meant for me to make things for others.

rusty quilter

I would have to agree with mamisti....cut some of my scraps to a certain size...10 years ago...they are still there. Fabric is expensive...now I buy what I need for the pattern I am working on...Sounds more expensive...but so is all of that fabric I bought "on sale" 5-10 years ago!