Scraps: a blog hop

Scraps.  Everyone has them, right?  This blog hop, hosted by Jen of Faith and Fabric, focuses on scraps and how they are saved, stored, or used.

I will be concentrating on how I store my scraps.  I feel like it is a little bit different than many other people that I've seen.

First off, I keep anything that is larger than 1"x 1".  I don't applique, so anything smaller than that probably won't get used.

Secondly, anything that isn't currently in a planned project is considered a scrap.  Yes, that means I have some very large scraps.  Any fabric in a planned project goes on a special shelf so I don't accidentally use it and everything else goes in bins.  I separate my solids from my other fabrics, but besides that I sort by color.

So here is my non-solid green scrap bin.  Until there is the tiniest amount left, it all stays folded together.  The little pile in the lower left are the pieces that don't have enough to fold together anymore.

Here is one of the fabrics I pulled out, but all the fabrics look similar.  

Inside that fold I have all the smaller pieces.  They aren't ironed.  They aren't trimmed.  (These all ended up as rectangles, but I often have triangles or other randomly shaped pieces.)  But they are all together, and I've found for me, that is the key.  I can easily tell if I'm going to have enough of the fabric for whatever project I'm working on right away.  If I'm doing a pure scrap quilt it's fun to go through what I have and rediscover some of the fabrics.

I never know what size of fabric I might want so I don't precut.  I don't iron because (if I do iron) I like to do it right before I sew.  If I end up never using this fabric again, I won't have wasted time on it.  So that's it.  That's the whole system...keep same fabrics together.

Check out the others in the blog hop!
Faith and Fabric
Swoodson Says
Vicky Myers Creations
Quilting is More Fun than Housework
The Cloth Parcel
Hilltop Custom Designs
Lulu & Celeste
made by ChrissieD
Fabric Engineer (you're here!)

Triangles Here, Triangles There

I finished my Riley Blake challenge piece called "Triangles Here, Triangles there.

It's a bit hard to see, but besides the obvious large triangles all the background pieces are triangles.  (The quilt was made in triangle blocks too).

It's a loose play on how there are all sorts of different people in the world; there are all sorts of different triangles too.  Large triangles, small triangles, equilateral, isosceles, and scalene.  There are double triangles (that one is shown above...since there aren't lines dividing the larger triangle blocks this one didn't come out quite as well.)  There is also one triangle that is missing part of itself.

I started feeling like I was running into the deadline to finish, and so I did a quick triangle stipple.  It was much faster than I expected and two days later it was done.  I never finish quilting that quickly!  I did not quilt over the dark orange triangles, making them pop out a bit more.

Some of the random stuff...the binding is in RB neon blue because that is the only RB solid my LQS had.  I had been hoping for orange, but I really like how the blue looks.  A happy problem!  I also ended up going with this design after taking a picture a few months back and realizing how much the orange stood out from all the other low volumes in the bundle.  I had to scrap an idea that was forming in my head and change it completely.  Lastly, the bundle image that they said they were going to send us included two solids.  I do love my solids and the colors match a wall in my house, so I figured I could make a wall hanging.  (Not shown, as I want to hang it up on an angle and haven't figured out how to do that yet.)  I was rather disappointed not to have any solids come with the bundle.  However, it worked out.  I like the final product. :)

This was my April goal.  I'm also linking up to Finish It up Friday.

March recap

1. Riley Blake Challenge.    My goal for March had been to finish piecing this.  I wasn't too far off, but I also wasn't all that close.  I'm not all that surprised by this; March was rather busy.  However, that means that now my April goal is to finish it all up.  I don't think it'll be too hard.

2. Temperature quilt.   I did spend one night in the middle of March getting up to date on this.  I now have January and February all put together and the days for March 1-17 put together.

                          
Other items still waiting around. I keep adding baby quilts...hopefully some of them can combine with other things. :)

3. Meshing solid HSTs.
4. Quilt nautical quilt.  
5. Rainbow log cabin.  
6. Simply solids bee quilt.   
7. Sunset wall hanging. 
8. scrap quilt #2. 
9. Scrap quilt.  
10. Orphan rocket block. 
11. Jeweled floors.
12. Lost piece (almost whole cloth quilt).  
13. Winter quilt.   
14. fabric from Christmas.   
15. A pillow with green/purple fabric.
16. green/white hourglass quilt.
17. baby boy quilt - possibly pair with another quilt on the list.
18. woodlands quilt.
19. Trying to fit in - left over triangle quilt. 
20. baby quilt - possibly pair with another idea TBD
21. Another baby quilt