Check out Bonnie Hunter's blog, she has some good ideas.
http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2005/...-and-hows.html

I do the same, except right now I'm doing 9-patches. I just make sure I don't have the same fabric in each one.

I just keep a box of them them by my machine as part of my "habit". Each time I finish a project, I cut the pieces up and add to my box. I hate having the long strings attached to my sewing, so the leaders and enders make that NOT happen!!! When I stop sewing (or start), there is ALWAYS a leader/ender on my machine. It is a nice habit that makes me feel more productive and less wasteful!!! LOVE IT.

My small pieces are to the right of my machine and just grab 2 and sew them together as needed. I usually make crumb blocks or 4 patches.

I do exactly as loveTooQuilt does. I only sew one set -- one pair together, 2 pairs together; my blocks are 6 squares by 6 squares. I only have 14 blocks done, but figure eventually I'll get my postage stamp quilt done, lol. (My squares are 2" square; the 1.5" squares are pretty, but too small for me.)

It does take some planning. Rather than using scraps, I completely cut a 'bonus' quilt and work that in between. Right now, I'm working on christmas gift quilts made from used men's shirts. For my bonus quilt, I am using brights plus white and doing the Bonnie Hunter Patches & Pinwheels.
http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2005/...pinwheels.html
I took a day and cut all the pieces for the patches quilt, placed (not sew) them into twosies and put them in a basket by my machine, where I can grab them as needed. Since i chain piece, I usually only have 1 or 2 bonus pieces sewn when I go to the ironing board and I just press them too. The color combo is totally different from the main quilts I'm working on so it's easy to keep them apart. I'm making four Christmas quilts and i figure that I will have the blocks for my bonus quilt done at about the same time.
My advice would be to set aside a whole day and cut those scraps (or a bonus quilt). You are not going to do it if you keep running out.

Thank you for sharing everyone! I have lots of scraps and didnt know what to do with them. How pretty the pictures are of the completed squares.

I use pieces that I have trimmed off units or blocks ... using 2 layers ... but starting less than 1" from the end so that it is easy to pull out the thread and reuse later. I keep a small pile of them by my sewing area.

ali

I start my leaders in the middle so the edge doesn't get caught up in the feed dogs. Then I usually just go through the ender far enough that I can clip the thread. I reuse my leaders and enders until there is so much thread on them that you can hardly see the fabric pattern. I usually just grab a quick scrap from my garbage bin as I don't usually keep anything smaller that 2". Sometimes I'll use left over scraps of binding - they're also good for checking your stitch as you go through several layers of fabric.

Left over binding makes great leaders and enders.

I think she's referring more towards Bonnie's (of quiltville)method of working on 2 quilts at the same time, using the leaders and enders between the main project you are working on.

My mom used to use leaders and enders the same way you do. She kept sewing on the same piece basically forever. When I was young I really thought it was something special that couldn't be lost. :lol:

Once I threw it away and panicked, I spent 30 minutes sorting through the trash. Mom just about died laughing when she saw me searching the trash. That's when she explained it was just a piece of scrap fabric. It wasn't anything special.