This Weeks Progress ~ Scraps And Binding

 This week was a slow one for quilting, but I still made it into the sewing room every day, even if only for a few minutes. While sorting through the tiny scraps bin, I realized there were even more scraps tucked away in the “Sweets” tin, where I keep random triangles to turn into half square triangles. As you can see, they multiply like rabbits....it’s time to let them go!

There were three HST's in the tin, so they’ll be added to the hoard of HST's.

My scrap HST system is bursting at the seams with about 3,000 pieces waiting to be used. I plan to keep adding to the stash whenever the flippy corner method produces more, but I’m done making them from random triangles. Of course, there’s one exception to this rule that we’ll cover later in this post.

The image below shows what I accomplished in one hour last night. I processed a few more on Tuesday night but forgot to snap a picture before putting them into the scrap saver system.

Here’s the exception to my new scrap HST rule... I can save small triangles for HST's if I can’t cut a one-inch square from them. I know it sounds a bit crazy, but I already have some tiny one inch HST's in my stash, so adding more makes sense to me. Making a quilt from tiny HST's sounds like a fun challenge... someday.

Last night I finally unfolded the Mumbo Jumbo quilt top to let some of the wrinkles fall out. I don't iron quilt tops before quilting, unless there’s a stubborn crease that could cause a pucker during the quilting process.  I'm not excited about quilting this one because I'm not a fan of sampler quilts.  The quilting plan is to just get it finished with as little quilting as possible. 

Last but certainly not least, the Starbound quilt binding is progressing slowly...one side done, three to go. Fingers crossed for a Monday finish.

This is the end of the quilting updates, but I have a Khaleesi update. It’s been a while since I’ve shared about my girl. As most of you know, she has an autoimmune disease called Perianal Fistulas. I took her off all drugs last year and was treating her holistically.  She was doing well until this past February when things took a horrible turn and we had to put her back on an immune suppressing drug, cyclosporine. It’s a tough drug with some nasty side effects, but it was either that or let the disease run its course, which would have caused her to suffer greatly. She’s doing much better now with only mild side effects. At her vet visit this week, we learned she’s doing so well that we can start tapering off the drug. There’s a chance she could come off it completely and never need it again.

Here's my girl. She looks scared because it was storming outside. She’s a big ole baby when it comes to storms, usually hiding under the table or in the bedroom closet. It might sound silly, but those of us in tornado alley know she’s one smart dog for hide during storms!

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One Quilt Off The Frame....Next In Line

Starbound is off the frame, and now the only thing left is to hand stitch the binding to the back.

Before diving into the soul soothing handwork, I need to tackle the fabric scraps from this quilt. The large blue and floral piece will be placed in the scrap backing stash, and the batting scrap will be saved for franken-batting.  The small pieces on the left-hand side of the picture will be cut into usable sizes for the fabric scrap saver system.

Just 20 minutes of slicing and dicing, and TADA! Taking care of scraps as they appear is so much easier than letting them pile up for months. It feels great to have a tidy sewing room, though it’s a bit sad it’s taken about 40 years to finally have a somewhat organized space.

We’ll see how long it lasts... since our last chat, I haven’t touched this scrap drawer except to move it out of my way... haha!  And I'm still not ready to deal with it so let's go ahead and prep for the next UFO quilt to be quilted.

 I found this one tucked away at the bottom of a rolling cart this week while searching for a quilt ruler I’d borrowed from my neighbor. It had been prepped to be next on the frame back in February. By the way, I found her ruler two days later...so much for bragging about having a tidy sewing room.

Might as well go ahead and pull the next to be quilted.  

Moody Blooms is a baby sized quilt so it should quilt up fairly quick. It needs a label and binding. I don't like this quilt so I think I might use the backing fabric as the binding.   Maybe I'll use the tehnique where the backing cut larger and rolled to the front of the quilt for binding then machine stitched into place.  Quick and easy!  What do you think?  Do you use this binding method?

In order to make sure I don't forget it's next in line to be quilted, I made myself a note. 

I put it where it's sure to be seen. 

 

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Starbound Quilting And Tiny Scrap Sort Progress

Hello Quilty Friends! Just a quick update on my quilting progress since our last chat. A little over half of the Starbound quilt is finished, and since it’s entirely ruler work, it’s taking a bit more time. I’m hoping to have it off the frame by Thursday evening. You can find more details on this quilt and pattern by clicking here.

I spent a couple of days bouncing between quilting and sorting tiny scraps. I dumped them all onto the cutting table, thinking I’d cut them as I sorted....bad idea. There are way more one inch and larger pieces than I expected. So, they’re now sorted into “trash” and “keep” piles, and I’ll cut them little by little as I find the time. I’ll keep you updated on how long it takes.

This scrap bin had a few surprises, I found some applique circles and simple applique leaf shapes. I’m pretty sure they ended up there by accident, since I never throw away applique scraps. Of course, I added them to my applique scrap box. By the way, if you’re curious about making perfect circle appliques, I have a picture tutorial and a video tutorial you can check out here.

I was shocked at how much fabric was larger than one inch. Cutting them into usable pieces is going to take some time.   Sure, I could just toss it, but…sigh…the battle between me and the tiny fabric hoard is real.

Which do you think has more fabric, the keep pile or the trash? I considered weighing them on the kitchen scale but decided it didn’t matter. Regardless of how much the keeper box weighs, the cutting journey is going to be long..

The pretty little fabric scraps are in the trash. It’s hard to let them go.....sad but true. I’m emotionally attached to them. If you’ve ever seen the show Hoarders, that’s me when it comes to fabric. Just looking at this picture makes me want to go rescue them. 

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Scrap Saver System ~ One Inch?

Starting a fabric scrap saver system takes some thought, and it should fit your quilting style. What’s my style? I’m not really sure. I just know I love fabric and quilts. I do know I’m drawn to bright fabrics...think of a box of crayons without the black and brown. And with fabric prices always climbing, I like to hang on to every bit, because sometimes those tiny scraps turn out to be surprisingly useful.

For my scrap system I'll be cutting the strips and squares 1", 1.5", 2", 2.5, 3", 3.5", 4.5", 5" and 6.5". 

Wide backing fabric scraps will not be cut or put into the scrap saver system unless they are less than 5" wide.  The way I see it those larger long pieces of fabric can be pieced into a wide backing.

 This post was inspired by Carol.  She commented on my last post which was about cutting fabrics for my new scrap saver system.  She wanted to know what I planned to do with the 1" strips.

Well, years ago I made the quilt below with 1" squares. They were scraps from my Promenading Tulips quilt.  It was a spur of the moment thing, I didn't plan to use them until I saw all the cute little scraps on my cutting table and thought, "they are too pretty to put in the trash".

Around the same time, I made this mini Ocean Waves quilt, also scraps from the Tulip quilt. The HSTs were created using the flippy corners method. This mini quilt is currently in storage, and I don’t want to dig it out to check the finished size of the HSTs, but judging by the cutting mat in the image, they appear to be about 3/4" finished.

I enjoy working with tiny fabric pieces now and then, but not all the time. The quilt below was also made using leftover flippy corner scraps.

And let’s not forget applique. The center of the flower shown below is smaller than half an inch, so as you can see, small scraps are definitely a good thing for me.

We took the long way around to answer Carol’s question, but the truth is I only have one project in mind that uses 1" strips...the OMIGOSH quilt pattern by Sue Garmen. I bought the pattern 2-4 years ago but haven’t been brave enough to start. The quilt finished size is too small for my taste, I prefer large, bed sized quilts. So, using her pattern, I did the math to make more blocks. Looks like I’ll need to start saving a lot more scraps—probably about two years’ worth! HAHA!

Now it's confession time.  I save pieces smaller than one inch.  However, in the last few years I've limited myself on what I can save.  Not every tiny scrap is saved anymore.  Rules have to be put in place for fabric hoarders like me.  My rule is... I can save it if it will fit in this drawer.  As you can see its pretty full and there's quite a few 1" strips.  Hmmm....if I add them to the scrap saver system it would free up space for more tiny bits of precious fabric in this bin!

It's been a while since I last dug through it ...so while I got it out I had to dump it and take a look.  Notice the TINY pieces less than 1".

Oh, what the heck I deserve a little playtime, let's dump it all!

This picture lets me know the hoarding isn't quite as controlled as I like to think. HAHA!

Smooshing it down so it will fit back in the rolling cart.  Looks like there's more room in there than I thought!  Yah!

EDIT This post was written on Wednesday morning and was set to publish on Friday.  Well Thursday morning I woke up, walk past the sewing room and saw the scraps of a fabric and made a major decision.

I think it's time to let go of anything less than 1".  I don't know what happened while I slept but if you're reading this, I'm still feeling the same.  The tiny scraps need to go.  

The way I see it now is...there's more fabric in my sewing room than I could possibly use in my lifetime.  Should the need arise for itty bitty pieces of fabric I can cut them from larger pieces of fabric.

So, it's settled.  I'm going to start purging this drawer and putting what I can into the scrap saver system. It's going to take a day or two (maybe more) to sort through this bin, press and cut anything 1 inch or larger.  

 By doing this I'm bending my own rule for the scrap saver system which was to only process fabrics from current projects. 

Up to this point my scraps have been sorted by color and stored in drawers under my quilt frame. For years I thought it best to leave them as they were until I had a plan for them. To process all of them into a scrap saver system would be overwhelming.   

 

  About 10 years ago I started cutting my scraps using Bonnie system, but it quickly became scary and overwhelming.   My plan now for these bins is to never add new scraps to them but gradually try to work them into the scrap saver system as I make quilts from them.

Why the big shift in how I feel about fabric scraps?  A YouTube channel called From Small Things.  I've been watching her channel since the first video was published, about a year and half ago.  And in that year and half she has swayed my opinion on the scrap saver system and how to best use your scraps without being overwhelmed or having way too much of them. It'll take a few years (if ever) for me to get to where Sue is with her system but I'm going to give it shot.

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