I use Bonnie Hunter's system. Works great for me. And now, having pieces already cut, I can sew up a couple scrappy quilts for some fire victims that have lost everything. Several fires 50-125 miles from me.

I don't pre-cut my scraps either. Rather I throw my scraps into the plastic bins marked for a certain size. I guess or measure at times what the smallest part of the scrap is and then that's the bin it goes into. Then when I need a certain size I know I can pull out the bins marked needed. That's what I did when I went to make a checkerboard border. I tend to throw my scraps into a large basket under my cutting table till I find the time to sort them by size. Just found the time and came up with over 500 2.5 scraps for my borders and sashings for a little wallhanging made up using some embroidered blocks I made back in 2004. Found them in another plastic tote under the quilt frame. Had forgotten all about them.

I cut up all my scraps last year. It took me about 2 weeks! I cut 2.5", 2", and 1.5". Of course I found a scrap pattern last week that called for 3 7/8. :eek:

i cut 2.5 strips 6.5 inch squares for baby quilts and 5.5 for baby quilts

My scraps get sorted into shoebox bins based on color. Anything smaller than a fat eighth makes it into the bin. I recently made Gypsy Wife entirely from scrap bins. It was fun to be able to say it was all scraps, but of course, just one quilt doesn't make much of a dent. I need to make a few more scrap quilts. The lid barely fits on the blue/aqua bin.
A few years ago, I cut 2 1/2 inch squares to make a "+" quilt, 5 inch square to make an "I Spy" quilt and another size for another quilt which I cannot recall. None of these ever became quilts. I've been swiping squares from the bins for other quilts... I just need to cut when I'm ready to make a quilt.

I use up all my cardboard (cereal, cracker and cookie boxes packages etc). I cut 5 inch squares and 12 inch squares. then I put my biggest scraps on these cardboards so they lie flat and can be filed. The smallest scraps are sorted by color, but not re-cut. it works for me.

I use my Go! to cut 2.5 inch squares and triangles for hst's. I also cut 5 inch charm squares, tumblers, and little flowers for an applique quilt.
I sort strips for string quilts too. The rest are waiting to be cut. I gave a huge bag to a fe!low quilter just to empty a drawer. Them do get out of control very quickly.

I'm still feeling my way when it comes to scraps. I'm not fond of extremely scrappy quilts, as I am not confident in my color choices - it ends up looking muddy. I keep items that are less than a FQ sorted by color.

The sizes I use the most mirror the pre-cuts so I can mix and match easily. If I only have a few squares around 10 inches or more, I like to do the magic eight (two 10 inch squares sewn 1/4 inch from each diagonal and then cut on the diagonal & and into quarters) by pairing it with white/neutral or another solid.

Then I have a neat stack of eight 4.5 unfinished HSTs. When I do this I also try to use the white/neutral with a few matching solids too, so I have several similar stacks to use.

At least it FEELS productive. HA! Now to use the 300+ random HSTs I've accumulated. : )

I saw Bonnie Hunter's system and cut some things up into various sizes and shapes. What I now see is that I prefer to use only 3 sizes when cutting up scraps.

I cut them into 2.5", 2" and 1.5" strips. That's all. It's super easy. If they are larger (like fat quarter size) I put them back with my fabrics unless I know that I will NEVER ever make a quilt using that fabric (for me, that means Mardi Gras, Elvis, etc.). If that is the case, I will go ahead and strip the whole yard or so I may have acquired (usually in an assorted "lot" of fabrics).