Show Us Your Scraps

Organizing those little left-over pieces of fabric can be a challenge. I rarely have enough of the same type/color of scrap to make a complete project, however, I can make beautiful scrap quilts when I keep them organized. Here are a few ideas.

Color bins

I keep larger pieces of left-over fabric sorted into a color bin unit that fits under my cutting table. Over the course of a year, they get shifted and disorganized so I usually spend time at the end of the year getting things back in order.

The top two red bins hold fabric I pre-cut into strips from myleft-overs. I try to cut them to the largest strip I can from the piece offabric. Most are 1" to 2 ½" and can be used for inner borders onscrap quilts, log cabin quilts or scrappy bindings.

In the case of the quilt at the top of this post, I used the strips to make the sashing between the 9-patch blocks I made from the leader-enders created as I sew. Another benefit to using a leader-ender is that there is less thread waste.

Baskets

I also have several baskets that hold odd sizes and smaller scraps. Many can still be used for future projects. Two of my baskets are just a jumbled mess and completely unorganized. Other small pieces have been cut into useable shapes like triangles and 1 ½" to 2 ½" squares.

I use these shapes as the "leaders" and "enders" when I start piecing at my machine. Many quilters use scraps to randomly start stitching on a leader before beginning their piecing to avoid getting a bird nest of thread at the start. They usually have a second scrap to run off at the end of their quilt block which then becomes the leader for the next block they piece. Instead of a random scrap that gets tossed, I make half-square triangle pieces and 9-patch squares. When I've accumulated enough of them, I make a quilt like the one pictured at the top of this post.

What do you do with your scraps? How do you organize them?