pollyjvan9

I got an e-mail from Martingale this week and they had a tip from Gayle Bong on how to organize your scraps in 3 steps. I think I am going to give it a try. I have always sorted by color but agree with her statement that she never uses just one color so she organizes by size. I'm not sure if she cuts them into specific sizes, I am not going too, just trim up scraps to a neat size and put them in a tub labeled with largest size I can cut, does this make sense? I really don't know, going to try it anyway because my scraps are definitely OUT OF CONTROL, but I just can't part with them.

rwquilts

It sounds interesting. I do organize by color as sometimes I do controlled scrappy, but I also have some scraps organized by size and even cut blocks, but that gets a bit tedious! Good luck and show us pictures of your work...it's fun to see what others are doing with their "ever growing" stash of scraps!

DebraK

I go by size for my strips because I can sort color as I piece. For everything else, I have a basket for warm colors and a basket for cool colors. I also have a basket for neutrals.

KalamaQuilts

http://gaylebong.blogspot.com/2009/0...obsession.html
They look sorted by color to me...although this post is 3 years old,

patchsamkim

My fabrics I do store by color, but scraps are stored by size...strips and squares. When a piece gets pretty small, I cut it up into whatever I can, strips and/or squares. My squares are 1-1/2" to 6" and my strips are 1-1/2 to 2-1/2"...works for me!

pollyjvan9

I started sorting a basket of blacks at 8:20 am and stopped at 9:20 to eat some breakfast. As you can see, I haven't made much progress. I have sorted by 1", 1 1/2", 2", 3", 4", 5" and 6", triangles, and some larger chunks. This will take me forever if I do all the tubs and baskets. I have scraps sorted by red/pink, yellow/orange, brown, green, blue, purple and black. This will definitely be a long ongoing project.

I have just had a thought; I am going to start cutting 'less' than what I think I need. I work a lot without a pattern and don't always know how much I am going to need. By the looks of these strips that I have cut, I either cut too much, or change my mind a lot. So, maybe for me a solution as to what to do with scraps is to make 'less' scraps.

pollyjvan9

Kalama, I think that probably her stash, but not sure. I sort my stash by color, am only going to reorganize scraps by size.

PaperPrincess

Here's another way to organize:

http://quiltville.com/scrapusersystem.shtml

rjwilder

I'm going to try it, I think I'll start with ironing and sort into strips, squares and triangles as I iron. That will also be a good time to decide what I can toss out. After ironing I will probably determine if I want to cut them into specific sizes or not. I already have a lot of clear plastic bins so I can start today.

Sierra

My scraps are in plastic drawers according to color. Right now I'm doing a row robin and I am using a lot of scraps! There is NO WAY I would cut down my scraps to be a certain size!!! I have a sand woman with a tiny bikini that is less than 1.5" each part. If I had cut my scraps.... agggh! I use my scrap drawers (arranged by color) almost with every quilt. I made a quilt of squares recently (mocking microscope photos for a marine biologist) and most of them came from scrap pieces. I also have two drawers of tiny scraps, one irregular bulky shapes, and the other of long stringly shapes. It seems like most quilts NEED a little surprise here or a bit of color there, or a sprinkling of bright colors down the side, or... whatever. I could only make so many quilts of squares before I began to hate them... and to HAVE to make them because I had all those pre-cuts to use... the idea makes me insane.