zozee

Wish me luck. My sewing room is a mess as I'm working on three things at once -- a mystery , some purging, and a string . I need some cheerleaders. I'll start with 15 minutes...I think I can, I think I can!

tkhooper

I know you can, I know you can. Good Luck.

oksewglad

zozee...the purging has benefits to your organizing...it'll leave room to work...my problem is keeping it organized...btw snailmail is on the way...

zozee

Thank you, thank you! Four hours and ten minutes later, I had a lot of scraps processed (pressed, cut, sorted, tossed if necessary, packaged for giveaways) so that felt good.

zozee

Indeed it does. I have become a big proponent of "if I don't love it, I don't want it taking up real estate in my house."

I got your snail mail today! So much fun . Your "addition" was fun. You asked how many quilts I could now make wiht all the dog material given to me? Um...a rough guestimate of 98 !

oksewglad

Glad to hear it arrived...knew it would find a better home with you for your project...and with your new organization it will make tracks right over to its new doghouse. Don't forget to share those finished pieces...

tkhooper

I'm still trying to figure out my scraps. Doesn't that sound weird? But it's harder than I thought at the beginning.

QuiltnLady1

Had someone come in and help me purge the room of non-sewing related stuff and put stuff away - now I can actually walk around. My flat surfaces are still a mess, but I got a couple of rolling carts at Walmart today to try to organize the stuff so I can use the mats and ironing surface. I am getting there. Have to do the taxes so I won't be working on the room for a while.

oksewglad

The first thing to analyze, tk, is what type of quilts do you like to do. Me ...I make miniature quilts, but only use scraps..so I have small bins of individual widths and will sort these into lights and darks or even particular fabric styles like brights or CW repro/Kansas Troubles. For this mini I pulled a cream and red strip from my 1" bin and went to the 2 1/2" one for the border and binding. I did cut the 4 setting triangles from a larger piece.



The same concept would apply to larger squares and strips. Do you gravitate toward jelly roll patterns? Then save 2 1/2" strips.

Do you like string quilts? Then exact widths may not be an issue for you

Can your scrappy quilts be random or do you like to control the color placement?

Personally I don't cut a large chunk into smaller pieces...that large chunk may be the perfect size to cut setting triangles in a quilt like the one above. Those chunks are sorted by roygbv, black, brown, white, cream, gold, and tan. Holiday scraps, pastels and brights are kept separately

Decide what your habits are and go from there...as I get lost in a sea of scraps. Currently I pulled out all my blue and rose colors along with creams to make the online 365 Australian challenge quilt with the intention of using the smaller chunks first if at all possible. Good luck...

oksewglad

Sometimes an outsider can really help make those decisions easier for you...bummer when the real world gets in the way....