Sewing the scrap pile

Have you seen The Pleasant Home blog - she is running a Sew Scrap Along during 2012. Each week she has been posting up inspirational quilts using all scraps. After seeing how many scraps I actually had floating around and subjecting all of those to a bath ;) I decided to start some long term scrap busting projects - because I totally need MORE work in progress quilts ;)

Last week I started a string quilt utilising all of Nanny's old scraps (scroll down a few posts to see that project)

I also decided to start cutting up my scraps with plans to make a postage stamp quilt - one day!

Taking one tub at a time I threw all the ultra small pieces in the washing machine (in a delicates bag to stop it fraying too much) 2 bags filled gave me a decent amount of scraps to get starting on. This was the first tub of scraps to be chopped up.  



Armed with my Rotary cutter, ruler and cutting mat I realised the next day I had put the blade on the WRONG side :o WTF was I thinking. It blunted the blade and I couldn't work out why it felt so different. Lesson learned!



Several hours later and puffy feet from the heat in my little sewing room - I NEED AIRCON! I had a really small bag of 2" squares for my postage stamp quilt. Another bag of 1" squares (did I mention I can't bear throwing anything away) and a few more 2.5" squares for a scrappy 9 patch I started making after I had finished quilting a project.



It honestly doesn't feel like much to start with and will probably take me years to get enough to make a decent sized quilt from, but I like that I am getting organised. And the best part is all the pieces that are a touch bigger (not as large as a FQ but too big to cut up as scraps) have been stored in a far better system of a plastic bag (for now… probably move them to a box at some point in the distant future)

I now have another pink tub of scraps to be chopped up as well as 4 more little baskets to be washed. I feel as though the organising is coming along at a really good pace this year!