I have never been a fan of the various scrap management systems that you see out there. I always thought it was wasteful to cut my scraps into predetermined sizes - because what if I cut 3", and I pick at a pattern than needs 4" blocks. Or 2" - those I could cut down from the 3" blocks, but then there'd be that 1" waste. It just seemed more conservative to keep the scraps whatever size they end up, and wait to cut them until I need them. So every time I made a quilt, all the bits smaller than about 6 inches got mushed up and crammed into one of my scrap bins.
Then, I started making my scrappy pineapple. And I was digging my way through all my scrap bins, trying to figure out what I have, which pieces are big enough to bother using, and having to iron and cut all of them to prep for my blocks. What a pain. And what a mess, as I dug through all those bins.
What I realized earlier last week is that I may be saving some fabric by not cutting my scraps, but in fact I don't know what I'm saving it for because I never make scrap quilts. And the reason is not so much that I don't like them, or don't want to make them. It's because I dread trying to dig through all my bins, pulling out scraps, ironing, and then finding out that I don't have enough of the colour I need anyway. So it's much easier to just grab a bunch of fat quarters (or buy more) to fill the 'scrappy' requirements.
So, as I was sorting through to find bits for my pineapples, I decided that I needed to sort things out. I figured 2.5" strips is the most common size I use. And if I buy myself an "easy angle" ruler, I can use 2.5" strips for half-square triangles too, so they become even more useful.
Based on that logic, I then decided that 5" strips make sense. They are big enough that I can later cut them down for 4" or 3" or whatever I need. Or cut in half for two 2.5" strips. So, I decided to cut my scraps into those 2 sizes.
And then, I realized that I'm left with a lot of still rather large pieces - so I cut 2" strips where I could. And the final step was 1.5" squares. I have a bin of these already, for a vaguely planned watercolour quilt - so anything without a larger use was going to get cut down to this size for that future plan.
I briefly considered 1" strips, for a (dream) of an ohmigosh quilt one day, but that's mostly a pipe dream, so I decided not to deal with those tiny little bits at this point.
At this point, I have cleaned out 4 drawers of crammed in scraps, and reduced them to these 3 tidy drawers of strips, plus my 1.5" bin of squares (which is now full, and will have to be relocated). Lots of room left in these bins, now that the fabric is all cut and folded neatly in strips. And lots more scraps to tackle. So far I've done my blue, brown, orange and some purple scraps. But I have big rubbermaid containers and at least 3 bags of more colours waiting for my attention.
I think I'm going to be happy with the end result - I guess the truth will be in whether I make a scrappy quilt in the near future :)
I've been a busy little beaver in my quilting room this week. No more finishes to claim, but I do have this top done. This is "Fox and Friends" and I'll be teaching a class on it later in September.
Plus, I have a real live finish to show today! I finally finished the binding on my Kaffe Fassett quilt. Made mostly with shot cottons, although the background is a Peppered cotton instead.
My new little twister quilt is now complete. The end result looks just like I hoped, although the process to get here wasn't quite as simple as I wanted it to be and the quilt is larger than I expected.
As a bonus from this quilt, the second cutting step gave me 3.5" squares, already twisted. So I'm putting these together into another top. It was a little bit small (18" square) so I took the leftover square from the first twister step and cut them to make a few more twisters for the bonus top. This will be 21" x 24" when I'm done (I ran out of squares) and should make a good donation quiltie.
Step 2 of my new project is now complete. Some might call this a finished top, but I'm trying something new with this one, so I have another set of cut & twist to go. 
I pawed through all my fat quarters, hoping to find a four-some which would work for this project. Not a lot of luck there, but I did put together a couple of options. I found 2 oriental fabrics that I've been trying to come up with a project for, and 2 matching fabrics in the fat quarter bin. Perfect! But when I went to iron them and start cutting, I realized that the 2 matching fabrics were not full fat quarters. Rats! Just one more reason to clean up my bins - apparently I dropped a number of fabric scraps in to the fat quarter bucket.
A half-yard of each of those fabrics went with me to class, and I carefully cut and sewed and cut and sewed some more, to make this quilt. Convergence really is a simple project, and goes together really quickly. And I could not believe the result when I was done. From 2 fabrics I disliked, I ended up with a really neat looking quilt. I was totally thrilled. The bright border is another batik which frames the center, and then I bordered it in the leftover purple. 
Once again, there isn't much change on my design wall this week. I had hoped to finish another 3 blocks, but they are only 1/2 done right now. So, I'm still sitting at 9 blocks for my scrappy pineapple.
I went to a quilt show on Friday, and I caved. Some pretty fabrics came home with me. First stop, I picked up this gorgeous city scape, and some coordinating fabrics. No idea what it will become, but I love this panel.
Another quilt from my pre-blogging days. After I finished my Irish Chain for my eldest, I of course needed to make a quilt for my youngest son. I wanted something a little bit different, but since I was still a new quilter, I didn't want to pick anything too complicated. I decided on this pattern of pinwheels joined by a simple chain.
The end result was a quilt I love - and he loved to pieces, literally. Unfortunately, the cheap fabric purchased back in my early days did not stand up to the daily use and regular washings that this quilt endured. The top was all high-quality fabric from a quilt shop, but many of the backing fabrics were early purchases. These have now started to shred. I made an attempt to repair this quilt for my son by adding a new layer for the backing, but realized when I started how many seams on top were separating. So unfortunately I abandoned that plan. I may try again - some dense quilting should hold the top together with a new backing. It's very sad to see a quilt falling apart, but it is good to know it was well loved. And never fear - my son does have a new quilt now.
Not much happened
in my sewing room this week, although I did manage to get a few more pineapple blocks made this weekend. Other than that, my time has been spent working on customer quilts.
I have just a little bit of fabric out this week, but the overall achievement is 4 finishes this week! I showed 3 of them on Friday, after a binding blitz. The 4th is a Christmas tree panel that I've had since 2013. Finally done - at least done to the point I could hang it. Still trying to decide if it needs some additional embellishment - I bought some thread for bobbin work that I thought might work for tinsel, although it might be too white, rather than silver. And I haven't decided if I'll add the lights or not. I think the answer is probably yes, but that might depend on the result with the thread.
