2020 - "Year of the Strips" - January report

This year I’m determined to cut up my scraps back into strips and/or organize my scraps that I’ve been just throwing into piles of bags as I’ve been whipping out these quilts!

Yep, it’s that time again. It matters not that I “should” do it as I go along. The fact is, I haven’t been.

These are just some of my scraps that I must go through!

I gave away about 6 bags of scraps (mostly what I would call crumbs) last year to a group that works with the handicapped for their handwork last November.

That felt really good.

I’ve also given away some of my crumbs to another lady who works with people in a psychiatric hospital - and that felt good.

Truthfully, though, they were pretty much akin to crumbs - very few “bigger” scraps. I saved those out.

So, a lot of my crumbs bags are cleared out. That is great. Don’t worry, though, should I want to make more crumb quilts - well, I’m always creating more.

I did make some crumb and string quilts in the last few years just to make sure I could do something I liked.

Here’s a shortcut of what I made from my strings and crumbs, actually - both are featured on the same page in the website.

Actually I’m using some of them in my I Found a Quilted Heart project (not talked about yet).

These are my “working baskets”. As I work, I keep these handy and close. If they get full, I put them into my bigger bags to be eventually combined with the “big bags” of strips. Yes, I will keep them in bags. I will not take the time to nicely roll them up. Most of mine are not nice and long strips, so that is simply more time consuming than I want to do (roll up small pieces).

These small pieces are destined to leave my house one way or the other.

If you are Polish and reading this (and in Poland), and want my strings (things I’m not using because they are under 1.5” inches wide), please contact me at customerservice@quiltedtwins.com or send me a PM on Facebook and I’ll see about saving them for you.

Otherwise, I am too overwhelmed with all these small pieces to mess with keeping them around.

I am now either currently sending them to kindling or passing them off to a lady who gives them to lady who works with people in the mental hospital, but I think I could exceed her needs with my scraps.

(I would bump another quilter to the top of my list until you cried “uncle”!)

I have managed to create more strips than I can use as well, so I need to get serious about doing some sewing marathons again. I also need to find some amazing patterns for my 2.5” strips I am producing. I have quite a few cool ones for the 2” strips. I do use the 2.5” ones for binding though.

So this year’s goal with regards to scraps is to get them cut back under control and sorted (again). I did it 2 or 3 years ago (I checked - it was 2016/2017 - my how time flies!) and really felt great about it.

While my goal has been 15-30 minutes a day, I’ve not always gotten that much in this project, but I am trying to clear out some room so I can set up my Sizzix.

Once I get that set up, things can move along quite quickly. (I have some strips dies)… but it does only work well on larger pieces of fabric.

If I have small pieces, it is more work than it is worth to try to use it. However. I remember going through a lot of fabric fast when I did it before. Lots and lots!

So, I’m setting aside my little bit bigger pieces to strip it up that way. Otherwise, I’m using a rotary cutter and ruler. Here’s how that looks: This is a piece of leftover backing from one the 120 charity quilts I finished up last year.

First I take the piece I want and spread it out on the mat

I straighten it out as flat as I can get it. I usually trim a bit off the left side first.

I cut off 2 - 2.5" strips - I usually do the largest I can with the piece of fabric.

The rest of the piece was a nice 3.5" piece which makes 1 - 2" strip and 1 - 1.5" strip.

Here are the last two strips and the tiny bit of scraps which will find a new purpose for its existence.

What I’ll do is make a Microsoft Word “table” and show you at the end of each month how many pounds of strips I’ve cut up that month - I’m not counting pounds of leftover scraps that have been dealt with - they are either being given away to a lady who has other contacts, or they are going to kindling. I do not weigh those as they are almost daily being taken away if I produce a lot of them.

At the end of this time I hope to have my scraps pretty much into 1.5”, 2”, or 2.5” strips. I probably will have a pile of larger squares as well. If they are already cut into something like a 3”, 3.5”, 4.5”, 5”, or 6” square, etc. I may leave them that way as they are fine in those sizes for making a bit larger half square triangles.

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I will say that I did this back in 2016 and 2017 - and here is the summary of that time -

I did start on my upcycled blues in the fall of 2017, right about when I quit cutting up strips.

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Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store!

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