Quilting and Stuff by Knitnoid

Category Archives: Scraps

Stash Report

January 18, 2015 12:01 am ⋅

Yes, 9 yards of fabric was received in this past week.  But I got Scrappy Trips quilted and bound, made a pillowcase to go with it and put the borders on my Christmas BOM.  Which is just over 6 yards.  So there’s still more fabric in for the year than used, but  I’ll have another quilt top quilted & bound and a pillowcase by the end of the week  which should put me with more used than brought in – at least until I pick up the background fabric I’ve ordered for a new quilt.

Fabric Added Since Last Report 9.0 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 11.91 yards

Fabric Used Since Last Report: 6.063 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 7.675 yards

Increase in Stash to Date:  4.235 yards

As for the habit of working on my scraps for 30 minutes each week, I only got 15 minutes in this week. I suspect with another 15 minutes I won’t have room to store the shorter pieces in the box and will need to stop and cut them down.

See how others are doing with their stashes by following the links over at Patchwork Times.

 

Posted in: habit, scraps, Stash Busting Report

Stash Report

January 11, 2015 10:42 am ⋅

Nothing in this week simply because it hasn’t arrived in the mail. Nothing out this week because I haven’t finished quilting the quilt.  — wait I forgot the pillowcase I made.

Fabric Added Since Last Report 2.91 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 2.91 yards

Fabric Used Since Last Report: 0.556 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 0.556 yards

Increase in Stash to Date:  1.298 yards

As for my new quilting habit I another 1/2 an hour last week working on the scrap bin.

habit-bin

 

I can actually see where the scraps are going down this week.  The plastic bag holds 2 1/2″ scraps as I’m currently focusing on the 2″ scraps.

habit-strips

 

The 2″ strip box is beginning to fill up as well.  Those pieces on the right will be sub-cut into bricks and blocks when I get the bottom of this box. I’m only keeping as strips anything longer than 12″.

Check out how others are doing with their stashes over at Patchwork Times.

Posted in: habit, scraps, Stash Busting Report

Quilting Habit

January 4, 2015 2:18 pm ⋅

It was less than a week ago I said I would work on my scraps for 30 minutes a week and report it on my Sunday Stash Report.   I nearly forgot!

Step 1 was to deal with the batik scraps after I finished the batik quilt and pillowcase.  I may have cheated.  I simply folded them up and put them in my shoebox of batiks.  But they are not laying on my ironing board so perhaps it’s not cheating.

Step 2 deal with the top box — the one that I called my stirring box.

countdowntask3 -scraps

 

My 2″ strip box got dumped in there, along with some of my wider strips so this should be an easy box — simply pull out the strips and fold them into the box.

After 15 – 20 minutes (I spent an hour working on the pillowcase and scraps) I had sorted out these.

scrapswk1-a

 

They are now folded up and in the 2″ strip box.

scrapswk1-b

 

I’m only keeping strips which are 12″ long as strips, the rest will get cut down into either bricks or squares, but for now will reside in the box.  I’ll work on the box again later in the week.

Posted in: scraps

Craigslist Projects

October 14, 2014 6:30 am ⋅

craigslist-scraps

No, that’s not a pile of trash in my sewing room.

Last week my husband clicked on the Free category in Craigslist and found a listing for “fabric scraps” – specifically quilting fabric scraps. Wonderful guy that he is, he brought it to my attention and I called.  Six bags. I’ve gone through part of the open bag and sorted it into “scraps”, “crumbs” and “too small for me”. I think this is going to take a while.

craigslist-mags

A few days later, in the same category, he found a listing for “quilting magazines”.  It’s going to take a while to go through these too. The boxes are still in my SUV. I hope I don’t need to haul anything anytime soon. Until I clear the “scraps” there’s no room for the magazines.

As long as the Royals are in the playoffs, I’ll sort and watch the game, but on travel days, I’m going to work on the batik quilt.

 

Posted in: scraps

What Happens at Retreat…

June 24, 2014 1:45 am ⋅

roadtripfabric

 

There’s a saying “What Happens at Retreat Stays at Retreat”.  Due to the projects I was working on I can’t show anything yet. But it was all not sewing. There was the shopping.

Starting at the bottom center and working clockwise:  Several Kansas Troubles Patterns, a 20 piece charm pack of KTQ lights, a spool of thread that works well with KTQ fabrics, 9 – F8 of KTQ fabrics a stack of KTQ scraps, Perfect Circles (the smaller ones), a light FQ, backing for a secret project, a yard of a cool cat/music fabric, a FQ of a music/Halloween fabric, fabric that I’m not using for the secret project and fabric to make a tie for my husband.  I just realized that I don’t have the ruler that I bought in the picture. Oh well.

I sewed, completing a quilt top start to finish with only one sewing mistake and one cutting error. Then I started working on Jared Takes a Wife with the intention of finishing it. Either I can’t count, or I simply didn’t finish cutting the cornerstones for the quilt because I came up 10 short.  As I worked on these two projects my leader/ender was the 4-patches for the border of Candy Sunflower Seeds. By the time I realized I couldn’t finish JTAW, I was too tired to think through finishing Candy Sunflower Seeds.

So naturally, I pulled out my applique project. It was pretty straight forward. Cut along the dotted line – so to speak – and then fuse into place. At that point I called it a night. The next morning, I figured out the cutting plan for the quilt which will be my next leader/ender project and then stitched one length of thread on the red work snowmen.

After I pulled out the machine today, I had to give the machine a bit of a cleaning…

retreatfuzz1

It was a bit fuzzy.  This is what I pulled out of the machine before I started sewing on the binding to my latest finish:

retreatfuzz2

 

Stay tuned to see my latest finish in the next post.

Posted in: Candy Sunflower Seeds, Jared Takes a Wife, red work, retreat, scraps, shopping

The Scrap Bucket

July 26, 2011 5:15 pm ⋅

Part of the cleaning of my sewing room resulted in all of the scraps (and larger pieces)  from the last 6 or 7 months getting corralled into one place.  To be fair, most of the popcorn tin contains “crumbs”  too small for me but I know there are quilters who love crumbs.

So, yesterday after sewing ONE of the two seams needed for the backing of the Crossword Puzzle quilt, I started working on this pile. I filled a 2 gal bag with crumbs from the tin (had to start there so I’d have a place for the crumbs I’ll generate working the scraps).  There was also a good bit a fabric which was too big to be called scrap which I’ve put away. So I’m actually down to just the plastic box which needs dealing with.

I put the lid on the box and set it over in the basket of thrift shirts which still need cutting up.

What can I say — I’ve got a pile of batting scraps which need to be dealt with — not to mention another seam on the backing for the Crossword Puzzle quilt (and all of the stuff I had spread out on the ironing board Sunday night.

Posted in: scraps

Return of the Leaders/Enders

January 22, 2011 11:58 am ⋅

Or, how I solved two problems at once.

I’m a big fan of Bonnie Hunter and her Scrap User’s System.  I really like Leaders & Enders.  I’ve used these two systems to get rid of my scrap basket, waste less thread and make more quilt tops.  I  have one quirk (ok, many, but only one I want to talk about today) which I haven’t been able to overcome — I don’t like sewing leader/enders unless I know where the patches will end up.  I haven’t been able to just make light/dark 4-patches and throw them in a box to be used in some quilt yet to be identified.  As a result, when the new year started, I didn’t have any leader/enders sitting by my sewing machine when I started working on UFO #6.

Although I  have a lengthy list of UFOs which are still in the piecing stage, there is nothing which mindlessly lends itself to Leaders & Enders.  So, as I worked on my Sister Choice blocks for the UFO Challenge, I tried to keep the chain going.  It wasn’t entirely successful,  but I wasn’t clipping thread tails every 6 or 12 inches either.

Now I’m sewing the blocks together into rows.

There’s no getting around it, I’ve got thread tails much more frequently and it’s driving me crazy.  I’ve got to find a Leader & Ender project.

I pulled out my 2″ Brick and Block box.  It’s stuffed.

Look at all of these 2″ x 3 1/2″ bricks.

Next, I  visited Quiltville.com to look for a pattern.

I found Fun with Bricks! It uses 2″ strips sewn together and subcut into 3 1/2″ squares.  I’ll just sew two bricks together — and worry about the 3 1/2″ light square later.

So there is just one question  left.

When do I count my Leader/Enders as a new start?

Posted in: Bonnie Hunter, Fun with Bricks, scraps

Scraps in Review

May 27, 2010 4:20 pm ⋅

Over the years my scraps multiplied. I didn’t really use them — they just sat in boxes and bags. Then I found Bonnie Hunter’s Scrap User’s System.

Around 2008 I started cutting up my scraps into usable pieces per Bonnie’s system. I started off with plastic shoe boxes for my pre-cut pieces. After a year, I finally got all of my scraps into a single laundry basket. For the past 11 months this basket has seen it’s ups and downs.

This year I decided that one of my goals was to empty the basket once and for all. I’ve been piddling with it since the beginning of the year, but this month I set my mind to getting it emptied.

I actually do make quilts from my scraps. Last fall I started Oklahoma Backroads because I couldn’t get my 2 1/2 inch bricks/blocks box closed. As I worked with my scraps this month, I was inspired to pull red, white and blue 2 1/2 inch bricks for a Star Struck quilt.

One thing I have noticed is that I don’t have a lot of “light” scraps. With this last push to empty the basket my 2 1/2″ and 1 1/2″ strips got larger boxes and I pulled the lights out. They are still in the shoe boxes.

Here’s the tour:

Left – Top to Bottom:

  • 1 1/2″ dark strips.  The Christmas tree box contains 1 1/2″ red and light squares for the center of a log cabin quilt.
  • Strings — the shoe box was overflowing.  I really liked the string blocks I made a while back but boy does working with strings make a mess.

Middle – Top to Bottom:

  • 1 1/2″ light strips
  • 2 1/2″ light strips
  • 2″ strips —  mixed and almost can’t close the box.  I’ll use these since I’m making my Texas Braid longer
  • 3 1/2″ strips — this started out as purple and yellow leftovers from Old Tobacco Road.
  • 2 1/2″ bricks and blocks for a red, white & blue Star Struck.  I want to use gold for the accent.

Right – Top to Bottom:

  • 2 1/2″ dark strips
  • 2 1/2″ brick and blocks
  • 2″ bricks and blocks.

Now that my scraps are usable, I’m going to have fun playing in them.

But, to answer your question — No, I do not want your scraps — at least not until I make a dent in these!

🙂

Posted in: Bonnie Hunter, goals, scraps, Star Struck

QA Wednesday

May 26, 2010 12:00 am ⋅

Last week I had a simple goal — Get the packages in the mail!

I’m happy to report that 4 packages went into the mail late Wednesday night and as of Monday afternoon they had all arrived at their destination.

Also on the list was “something”. I did a bit of machine quilting on Dancing Flowers, completed another 10 or 20 blocks on Oklahoma Backroads and started 2 more braids on Texas Braid.

But the biggest accomplishment which is on my 6 month list, but not last week’s list was I EMPTIED the scrap basket!

This basket has now been hauled to the bedroom to be used for LAUNDRY.

Ok, I admit it, I still have a bit to cut, but it’s been pressed and some it simply needs to be sorted.

I got side tracked Tuesday tonight. Earlier in the week when I was cutting the red scraps. I thought “I could make a Star Struck quilt using red and blue as my dark.” So there was nothing to do but dig through my 2 1/2″ bricks box and my 2 1/2″ dark strip box and pull red and blue bricks and strips. I have enough red bricks pulled/cut for 40 blocks. I need to cut some more blue strips to have enough blue bricks, but while I’m cutting….

So my goals for next week are:

  1. Finish cutting up the purple scraps
  2. Cut the remaining blue bricks
  3. Make a decision on the pink Carolina Christmas blocks — I’ve got pink fabric scattered about the room and I want to get it put up.

Now, if I could do as well on my Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler blocks and my Double Wedding Ring. Maybe they’ll go on my list next week.

See what others are up to by checking the links over at Bari’s.

Posted in: goals, scraps

Scraps

May 12, 2010 6:43 pm ⋅

One of my goals for this year is to clear my scrap basket. It’s really only a six month goal, as this is one of my guild challenges and we have to have our challenges completed by the July meeting. This is what is left in my scrap basket. Purples, Pinks, Reds, Greens, Yellow/Orange/Brights, Lights/Browns, Blacks and wait — is that a pile of Blues? I thought I had them taken care of.

From this you might think I make a lot of purple, pink and red quilts. There might some truth to that, but it’s more a case of last year when I made my way through the basket I stopped before I got to the pinks and purples.

My scraps do not get tossed into the basket by color. Somewhere along the way I read that one way to keep motivated is to do all of a single color/style so you can see progress. I started following this when I was working on my Old Tobacco Road quilt. I dug through and pulled all the green and yellow. Obviously I’ve made some quilts with green since then.

The next time I have the urge to chop up fabric, I’ll pull one of these colors from my basket and start cutting. I really do want to see the bottom of that basket without me throwing the scraps on the floor or ironing board.

Posted in: goals, scraps