I am not sure how many years I have been making quilts - not that many really - but I have saved much of the waste pieces of fabric because I could not bring myself to throw them away! I have utilised a system at the end of a quilting project of sorting into 1.5" strips, 2" strips, 2.5" strips, 3"+ pieces and anything over that gets folded and returned to storage. I have open shoe boxes that hold the folded pieces (like fat quarters) into colour related sections. Large yardage is just folded and stacked on a shelf. All the other odd sized scraps just get put into boxes and at the moment I have got it down to two having done three different scrap quilts so far. I am still amazed at what I have, but know I am not like some who are in our quilting group ( they have cupboards full and one woman says she has a room full!!)
I know that it is unlikely that I will never ever use all that I have. Today, still in a form of lock down ( i.e. not going out unless I really have to) I decided to start a project that will use up as many scrap pieces as possible without looking too scrappy if you know what I mean.
I came up with this block. Not sure what it is called, but it was one that was in my 365 challenge quilt. It is made up of 2" blocks and finishes at 5" square uncut, so in the quilt each block would be 4.5". My problem might be having enough green for the leaves. I might have to resort to some leaves being browns and perhaps oranges! The bottom right square should have had a stem, but I think I will just machine embroider the stems when the blocks are all pieced together. I plan on making about 3 - 4 blocks a day interspersed with cutting the necessary pieces. Once I have enough cut, I chain piece. I am keeping to the same neutral fabric for each block, but now realise that I don't have a vast amount of scrap neutrals. That will mean at some point I will have to cut into my stash. Once I have quite a few blocks done I will hang up my design wall and have a play with possible layout. I may add a different block in between these to perhaps utilise more of my scraps. It is quite obvious that I am drawn to particular colours. I have very little red (other than what I have been given) and hardly any yellow or green. I must be a blue, black and white, purple, grey and cream sort of person!! Any variation I have is from very old cotton dresses I made back in the 1970's, the off cuts having been found in a box in the loft! Most of my sewing off cuts after that tended to be poly cotton and synthetic materials.
