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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