Last week I pulled most, if not all of my green scraps from my scrap basket to cut them up into usable pieces.

I just finished cutting the last of them up.

The pile at the top are the slivers which will be tossed out, then there were 3 pieces which were too big to get sliced up. The pile at the bottom are crumbs. I’m not into crumbs, but I know there are those who are, so one of these days, I’m going to box all the crumbs up and send them to someone.

The stack of 2 1/2 inch by 4 1/2 bricks is about 1 inch tall, the 2 1/2 inch squares about 3/4 of an inch tall. The 2 x 3 1/2 inch bricks and 2 inch squares are about 1 3/4 inches high. I’m not sure how many bricks and squares that works out to.

Then there is are the strips and strings. 2 1/2 inches, 2 inches, 1 1/2 inches and finally strings.

I think I’ll dig through my basket and find another color to work on now.

Over the past year, I’ve managed to get my scraps into this single laundry basket. It’s about 18 inches square and 11 inches tall. It fits nicely under my fabric shelves. As you can see it’s rather full – but I can’t bring myself to toss out usable fabric. So, this week, instead of doing any number of other things around the house which need to be done, I’ve been working on my scraps.

I follow Bonnie Hunter’s Scrap User’s System with some variation. I’ve got shoe boxes on my shelves with squares, bricks, strips and strings. I’ve even been known to pull pieces from these boxes for quilts I’m making.

My goal is to clear the laundry basket — some day — but more importantly not add to it. So, moving forward whenever I finish a project I’m going to cut up my scraps if they are smaller than a fat eighth.

This week I’ve pulled a couple of handfuls of fabric out of the basket and cut it up, but I could hardly tell looking at the scrap basket. So, tonight I pulled most of the green out of the basket. I won’t call it all, because I didn’t do a complete search. There could still be some hidden in the middle.

I’m curious to see how many pieces I can get out of this. When I get this pile done, it will be back to something more pressing I’m sure.