From The Cutting Room Floor--A Start!

Contents of the bag after a rough sort

My friend Martha loved to sew scraps.  When I learned she had died, I thought I would like to have her scrap basket. She put her scraps in a wire basket that was about 20" x 12". In our daily e-mail conversations, she would tell me how messy her sewing space was. I, however, only saw her space neat and organized. When I asked her where the mess was, she would report that when I came over, she put it in a bag; put it behind a door; put it in a closest; dumped it on her bed. Then, she just giggled. When I stepped into her sewing room that first time after her death, I discovered her mess. I chuckled.

She was true to her word. There were scraps, parts and projects everywhere! As I cleared fabrics, I'd encounter more scraps. The more scraps I found, the more I giggled! The couple grocery bags that I thought I would have turned into much more than that! For this post, I'm sharing what I did with one plastic grocery bag of her scraps.

Packaged after cutting

From that scrap bag, I removed the neutral strips and chunks as well as any fabric that fit for the Bonnie Hunter mystery last fall. I gave my friend, Gail, some bits of blues and purples for her to add to a background she wanted to make for a special project. Miss K pulled fabrics from the bag for her mermaid project. After all that removal, the contents of the bag continued to spill out on the floor. I'd pick it up only for the spillage to occur another time.

It was time to divide and conquer the contents of that bag using Bonnie Hunter's scrap saving system! I dumped the contents on the cutting table and began putting like pieces together. I had a pile of strings that were about 1-1 3/4 inches wide. I bagged these for a string project. There was a group of 2 1/2 "ish" inch strips that I also bagged.  Finally, there were some larger strips and chunks that were in the 4-5 inch range. I also put those in a bag. It was time to sort and start cutting the remaining bits into useable pieces. I wish the photo showed how high these scrap piles were! The photo makes it look like there wasn't much in the bag!

(Left) Ready for the project bag and (Right) ready for storage

The first day, I cut for a couple of hours. I had a pile of: 3 1/2 inch squares, 2 inch squares and 1 1/2 inch squares. I also had a few 2 1/2 inch squares. There were a lot of 4 1/2 inch chunks. I decided that if I had a plan, the more likely the pieces would become a finished project. I have so many in process projects and projects that I want to start that I didn't want to go that route. Instead, I decided that I would do a leader/ender project.

Since this bag of scraps contained some large print florals, I decided I'd prepare Jewel Box Stars as the project. (Martha had a lot of floral fabrics in her stash.) This pattern uses half square triangles that finish to three inches. It is a free pattern on Bonnie's website. I spent a few more days cutting. Total cutting time was 10 hours. If I could have cut two or three layers at a time, I would have spent less time cutting. Most of the pieces were odd sized so cutting them one at time was the best way to get the most out of the fabric pieces.

When I finished, I had a bag of triangles of various sizes. These probably were waste triangles from other projects. Some day I'm going to make a tiny paper pieced flying geese block project. I'll need many triangles to stitch it. I also had a few three inch squares. I didn't cut these down. I might use them in a particular project soon. We will see! As I cut, I ended up with a large amount of 1 inch by 3-4 inch strips. I saved these because I think I will make a paper pieced string border to sash this quilt.

First block finished

My inventory after sorting/cutting and in addition to the string bag and two strips bags was:
--a small bag of pieced bits which could be starters for crazy pieced blocks. I also added parts for a few nine patch blocks.
--a small bag that contained fabric that was backed with fusible. Martha liked fusible backed fabrics for applique. I may cut some shapes with the fabrics during some future play time.
--a small bag that contained all the squares but the two inch squares.
--a small bag that contained all the two inch squares plus I raided my neutral two inch squares.
--a small bag that contained all the HSTs. I also added enough neutral HSTs so that I will have enough to cover all the HSTs that I cut!

A lot of these scraps were the leftovers she had after piecing her project. After I finish a project and generally before I work on the next project, I take some time to cut the scraps into usable pieces using Bonnie's system.  In a few minutes, I have the pieces cut and sorted.

In this manner, I have accumulated bags of squares and strips. I stopped cutting the bricks because if I want those, I can cut them out of strips and I have less parts in my scrap inventory! I do not have bags of scraps. I do have bags of color coded "precuts" instead!

Second block ready for stitching

It is great to go to the scrap bags when I need materials for a project. Having "precuts" at my finger tips is nice! I cut what I could out of the bits. I didn't count how many parts I cut. I did cut backgrounds from my stash of neutrals. Now, my plan is sew and see how many blocks I have. When I need more chunks, I'll break into that bag of 4-5 "ish" inch strips to cut more. Martha wanted variety so she cut her strips at at different widths. When she miscut a strip, she slipped it in her scrap bag! So those are the reasons behind the width variety!

I laid out a block and took a photo of it. Those HSTs remind me of butterflies! I have no idea how close I will come to stitching it nor do I have any idea how long it will take me to make the blocks because, I plan to stitch these parts while I piece other projects. The parts will be the leaders and enders instead of scrap fabric. I'm going to make two quilts at one time! Perhaps, once a quarter I will update my progress. I think this would make a great "I Spy" quilt because of all the variety. Believe me, there is a lot of variety!!! In each block, there are 32 two inch squares and 16 three and a half inch half square triangles.

The projects I make from Martha's scraps will be called "From The Cutting Room Floor." I'm curious as to how many quilts I will stitch from her little bits! Stay tuned! For now, I'll report that storing a closed two gallon plastic zip lock bag that is less than three quarters full is a huge improvement!  It is so much easier to use parts from it too!  I'm no longer tripping over spillage from that plastic grocery bag!!!