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!)