Posted in Quilting
I am partial to scrap quilts. To me, they always look like “real quilts”, as opposed to over-coordinated quilts that look like they might have come from a department store. And it’s a great excuse to collect fabric!
When I began quiltmaking, I indiscriminately saved every snippet of fabric, in every shape, color and size. My boxes were stuffed with wrinkled bits of fabric of dubious fiber content. Very kind ladies gave me boxes of fabric that they had inherited from Great Aunt Myrtle twenty years ago. Some was washed, some was not, and some came from households with smokers and/or pets.
As a result, I used very little of it. I let the children play with it, so it didn’t actually get wasted. But in the end, after hoarding it for years, I threw most of it out. I have, after 20 years of steady and serious quiltmaking, developed a system for my fabrics.
- I don’t buy bad fabrics. I don’t mean inexpensive fabrics, because I am very frugal. I mean poor-quality fabrics. If I am offered undesirable fabric, I usually decline if I can do it without hurting feelings.
- As soon as it enters my house, it goes into the laundry. I wash it and dry it and allow it to cool before folding.
- I store my fabric in Rubbermaid totes. If I didn’t take it out and play with it regularly, I would not recommend plastic storage. But I need CLEAN storage, not cardboard or open containers. It needs to be mouse- and water-proof. The totes are labeled according to color and/or style: Red, Blue, Yellow, Depression Era, Yarn-dyed Plaids, Christmas, Juvenile Prints… I won’t even admit how MANY totes I have.
- When I have small scraps or leftover pieces from dressmaking or quilting, I cut them into strips. I have totes for 2” strips and 1 ½” strips. Bigger leftover pieces go into the other totes.
You can make MANY different projects with 2” strips. I also use the narrower ones, but the 2” strips are very versatile and convenient to work with. In the next few weeks, we are going to be doing projects with these 2” strips. You can start cutting now! For helpful rotary cutting tips, check out this page on my website: http://www.gloryquilts.com/rotary_cutting.htm
Catherine Timmons lives in semi-rural
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