My current Works in Progress (that I can share, some are under wraps!) include organizing my fabric scraps (and organizing my craft room in general), a picnic quilt for myself, a Craftster Swap, and a Guild Swap!
After hearing my friend Linda's swap organizing techniques and reading this blog post from Squares and Triangles, I finally had a better idea of how I can get this darned fabric corralled! Anything that is a Fat Quarter I organize loosely by color and add to these baskets (I need a new basket, these 2 are packed full and I have at least 20 more FQs that won't fit). Also, lately when using yardage I've been cutting a half yard and then cutting that half yard into 2 fat quarters. 1 for the project I'm using, 1 straight into the FQ bin, and the yardage goes back on the shelf. In theory.
I should mention, my current fabric yardage is ogranized on wire cubby shelving, and scraps are organized by color into shoe box sized rubbermaid containers that they are bursting out of. Plus about 2 grocery bags full of scraps floating around the craft room. you can see why I desperately need a scrap solution! Since organizing by color hasn't seemed to work so far, I am going to try by size.
I'm methodically ironing and trimming my scraps. If they are close enough to FQ size, I add them to the FQ bin, otherwise I cut 4 or 5 inch squares. Smaller squares or rectangles that aren't at least 4 inch square (so, 2 x 2, 4 x 3, 6 x 3) goes into the small pieces bucket. As these buckets get filled I'll transfer them to labeled bins I have in ready and waiting empty Rubbermaid carts. Yay!
In the future I hope to maintain this by taping a grocery bag to the side of my sewing table and as scraps are generated they will go in there until I have the time to trim and sort properly!
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| Clockwise from upper left: Small pieces, 4 inch squares, 5 inch squares, Strings (thin strips), scraps to be organized, and long, wide strips. Not shown is another basket with strips that are thicker than strings but not long enough to go with the long strips. |
A few years ago I fell hard for Sultry fabric by Basic Grey for Moda. I bought a Layer Cake, used it up, and then bought a full FQ set! Unfortunately, by that time it wasn't really my favorite anymore. I still like it a lot, but the majority of the FQ set just sat around for awhile, and I had no ideas. Recently I decided to make a picnic quilt out of it....for myself! Novel idea! The only quilt in my house that I've made is my mom's. I cut the FQs into 6 inch strips and then randomly started making Log Cabins.
A 4 x 3 grid of these giant blocks and the quilt is mostly put together! It's pretty big but I'm still going to add a border with randomly sized pieces. I want to finish this for our guild picnic quilt in August! I better get on it!
I am also in research mode for a fun swap I'm running on Craftster. My partner has a pincushion collection, so I very well may have a pincushion in my future!
I'm also trying to figure out what to make for the PNW MQG Meetup Tote Bag Swap! We each got a half yard cut of some awesome Robert Kaufman fabric to use in our tote, so I am extra excited to get going on that!
