- So, what do you do with scraps?
We make them with every single project
and our Mt Scrapmore
gets bigger and bigger with every step.
Today, I'm inviting you to see my Mt Scrapmore,
and I'll show you my process and how I consume them.
So stick with me and I'll show you how to do it.
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Hi there, it's Karen Brown of Just Get It Done Quilts.
I give you tips, tricks, and strategies
to help you make the quilt that you want to make.
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Though I really love scraps,
I honestly try to avoid them with 2 strategies.
One, I try to choose patterns
that have little or no wastage.
And the second is with every project,
I accumulate all the scraps into one bag
and save it to the end.
Often I might need those scraps to repair any mistakes.
Then I organise all the scraps by size and shape
and then make every effort to incorporate them in my back.
And I call this process making an afterquilt
and I have a video about it
and I'll leave a link in the notes below.
And I can't remember
whether I showed you the finish of my sugaridoo quilt
but this is the back that I made for that.
And I absolutely love this quilt.
And I bound it with a 1-inch binding by using that linen.
It had a beautiful weight and feel to it
and I gave it to my eldest son.
But once I've made the back, any scraps leftover
go into this bucket beside my sewing table.
The second way scraps come in
is after I've trimmed up a quilt.
And these are long pieces from the sides and the top,
and it often includes batting.
And the third way is just in my everyday sewing,
when I trim something, when I find a piece lying around,
I clear it off my table and I put it in the bucket as well.
Now, I used to have several buckets behind my sewing area
where I would sort them kind of as I went
and every month, I would do a good deep sort,
but I found that those buckets were getting in my way.
So I bought this laundry basket and I put it under my table
and I find that so much more convenient
for just keeping my area clean
and clearing things off my desk.
But it's been a while since I've looked at it,
and I did not do much of it during my declutter challenge,
and now it's time to deal with it.
So when I process them, I just take it from the top
and I just (laughs)
take it a chunk at a time.
You want to have a really sharp blade
in your rotary cutter to process your scraps quickly.
So if you can't remember when you changed it, change it now.
These two piles of scraps are off cuts
from when I squared up a quilt.
They consist of batting and large pieces
and long strips of the backing fabric.
And I like to cut
as many 2 1/2 inch strips as possible.
This I will use for binding on a future quilt.
If you watched my Stashbuster 2 video,
you'll remember that it's just so easy
to dig into my spare binding basket
to save some time when you need it.
I separate the batting from all the fabric.
Then I cut any remaining fabric
into 2 1/2 inch strips, if I can,
and just straight strips with anything else.
The smallest strip I will cut will be 1 inch.
And I have saved the selvage,
but I do not actually use the selvages.
I bag 'em up and I send 'em off to somebody else that does.
Now, this flannel piece, I handle exactly the same,
except for the big piece.
I am not making 2 1/2 inch strips.
I save flannel to do other projects out of them.
I make dusters, washcloths, and some other things.
And with all these batting scraps,
they're too small to make into franken-batting,
so I'm just chopping them up into tiny pieces
and I will use this in pillows.
And I've done a video about this as well,
and I'll leave a link in the notes below.
So now it's time for another dive into Mt Scrapmore
and I'm finding larger pieces of fabric,
I'm finding old fat quarters,
and I'm beginning to separate my solid coloured scraps.
Now I have no idea why, but right from the very beginning,
I have always kept my solid coloured scraps
separate from my pattern scraps,
and I actually handle them quite differently.
I sort my solid coloured scraps by colour.
I do not sort them by size.
And I store my fabric with a pattern on it
in 5-inch strips and 2 1/2 inch strips
and never by colour.
This next bunch of fabric is full of other backing.
I guess I must've just completed a lot of quilts,
but there's backing, there's strips,
a lot of garbage stuff in here.
And I'm suddenly overwhelmed.
I have forgotten my cardinal rule of working with scraps
and that is to use my timer.
I find myself burnt out.
I don't want to touch these scripts anymore.
And I've made an absolute disaster area of my space.
So after yesterday doing too much,
today all I'm wanting to do is to put everything away.
And having decluttered
and recently organised my sewing space,
I have a spot for everything,
so it's fairly quick work to get everything
where it needs to be.
And after working with all those scraps,
my floor needs a good sweep,
and my cutting board needs a good clean.
I'm just using a ball of masking tape, sticky side out.
It isn't going to be fun, it's not going to be pretty,
but I've set the goal today to finish processing
all the scrap batting in my bucket.
Hard to believe that there's a downside to finishing quilts,
but I've let this accumulate too long.
One positive thing that I have found in my bucket
is I have started four of my adding machine crumb strips.
So when my timer goes off,
I merrily switch gears and get those done.
And it's so weird how these can look like a dog's breakfast,
but as soon as you trim them up, they are special.
And I add them to the stack
of 60 strips that I've already done,
and I store them with my other works in progress.
Then I grab a stack of small pieces and process some crumbs
and then I make some new hexie pieces
to replenish my supply.
I've got all the batting done, I processed all the backs.
I realise I can put this all away
and just attack it again next month.
Remember you never ever conquer Mt Scrapmore,
you just keep it in check.
So you might be asking
what do I do with my pattern strips
that I cut into 5 inch, 2 1/5 inch,
and the less than two and a half inch?
Well, the 5 inch ones I cut normally
into 5 inch squares,
and I just make cuddle quilts and crib quilts
out of them for the charity that I donate to.
It's just a simple
I divide them into light, medium, and dark values.
And then just do 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3,
1, 2, 3.
The 2 1/5 inch strips,
if they are width the fabric, the scrap sampler block,
number two is my preferred block.
And if I only have a fat quarter width,
then I do the block that I did first Stashbuster 7.
And if they're even smaller than that,
then I do the square and the square or the cross
or the 2x2 or if I just have enough for a mini charm,
I use them for the leaders and enders.
And as you can see by these piles,
they can accumulate quickly.
And currently, I have been using these blocks in backs
where I do not have enough scraps to make an afterquilt.
And I use my less than two and a half inch strips
in quilt as you go blocks and these long braids
but I see also in the last couple of days,
working through all these scraps
that I have a lot of them right at the moment.
And though I have been processing them,
I think I'm declaring April
get these blocks into quilts month, so stay tuned.
Last week on Karen's Quilt Circle,
I was talking with Wendy Chow
and we were talking about community.
She's an amazing, dynamic woman and you don't want to miss
it so I'll leave a link in the notes below.
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