Scraps

Scraps, we all end up with them…but what do you do with them?

I am, what I consider, a new quilter slowly building up my fabric stash of fat quarter bundles, charm squares, layer cakes, jelly rolls and background yardage. I love background fabric!! Background fabric to me is like the salt and pepper of the kitchen. We always need it.

My Fabric Collection

I like to buy complete quilt kits that come with more than enough fabric cuts to make the project. I love monthly fabric boxes that surprise me with beautiful designer fabric and a visit to my local quilt shop always results in fabric cuts that I am not sure what I am going to do with yet.

In the past three years, (yes, that’s how long I have been quilting) any leftover scraps from cutting fabric for blocks, for sashing and borders, went into a plastic basket. Literally just dumped them in, no matter what the size. I didn’t want to throw out the gorgeous fabric but had no idea what else to do with it, except save it.

How I stored my scraps before.

Until now! I recently read a book by Lori Holt called Scrappiness is Happiness and it blew my mind! She has this great little system to deal with scraps of fabric. So I thought, hey…why not try it. If nothing else it will organize my scraps and make them look pretty. I cannot tell you how satisfying it is to see pretty strips of fabric, neatly organized by colour, by size and the absolutely endless possibilities for future blocks and quilts.

So how did I do it? First thing was to go out to my local dollar shop and buy 6 baskets. Each basket I attached a little cardboard disc to which read: 1 1/2”, 2 1/2”, 3 1/2”, 5”, 7” and Squares.

The baskets from the Dollar Shop

I currently keep each of my projects in a large scrapbook plastic bin, all the fabric, pattern, blocks in progress are stored in there. Once the quilt is completely pieced, the top is moved to a shelf with the backing and binding, waiting to be quilted. The contents of the scrapbook plastic bin (the leftover fabric) are now cut into strips or squares as listed above, and placed lovingly into the little baskets.

Cut down and sorted

I fawn over them. I stroke them. I whisper sweet nothings to them….these little babies will grow up to be a big quilt soon!

Regarding Lori Holt’s book, Scrappiness is Happiness, its only the first few pages that show you her method for dealing with scraps, the rest of the book….pages and pages…are all various blocks and quilts she has designed to use up those scraps!

Lori is doing a Scrappiness is Happiness sampler quilt-along in October, which I am definitely going to do, and will share my progress on my Tobyknits Quilty Fun YouTube each Friday.

So now you know what to do with your scraps…..cut them, sort them, coo over them and go let your babies grow and flourish into family heirlooms!!

Anne Hunt has a YouTube channel called Tobyknits. She is also a PMQ Influencer for our newest PMQ Piazza, putting together the Valle colorway.