- So, what do you do with scraps? We make them with every single project and our Mt Scrapmore gets bigger and bigger with every step. Today, I'm inviting you
to see my Mt Scrapmore, and I'll show you my process
and how I consume them. So stick with me and I'll
show you how to do it. (upbeat music) Hi there, it's Karen Brown
of Just Get It Done Quilts. I give you tips, tricks, and strategies to help you make the quilt
that you want to make. And if you like what you see, please hit that subscribe button. Though I really love scraps, I honestly try to avoid
them with 2 strategies. One, I try to choose patterns that have little or no wastage. And the second is with every project, I accumulate all the scraps into one bag and save it to the end. Often I might need those
scraps to repair any mistakes. Then I organise all the
scraps by size and shape and then make every effort to
incorporate them in my back. And I call this process
making an afterquilt and I have a video about it and I'll leave a link in the notes below. And I can't remember whether I showed you the
finish of my sugaridoo quilt but this is the back that I made for that. And I absolutely love this quilt. And I bound it with a 1-inch
binding by using that linen. It had a beautiful weight and feel to it and I gave it to my eldest son. But once I've made the
back, any scraps leftover go into this bucket
beside my sewing table. The second way scraps come in is after I've trimmed up a quilt. And these are long pieces
from the sides and the top, and it often includes batting. And the third way is just
in my everyday sewing, when I trim something, when
I find a piece lying around, I clear it off my table and I
put it in the bucket as well. Now, I used to have several
buckets behind my sewing area where I would sort them kind of as I went and every month, I would
do a good deep sort, but I found that those buckets
were getting in my way. So I bought this laundry basket
and I put it under my table and I find that so much more convenient for just keeping my area clean and clearing things off my desk. But it's been a while
since I've looked at it, and I did not do much of it
during my declutter challenge, and now it's time to deal with it. So when I process them, I
just take it from the top and I just (laughs) take it a chunk at a time. You want to have a really sharp blade in your rotary cutter to
process your scraps quickly. So if you can't remember when
you changed it, change it now. These two piles of scraps are off cuts from when I squared up a quilt. They consist of batting and large pieces and long strips of the backing fabric. And I like to cut as many 2 1/2 inch strips as possible. This I will use for
binding on a future quilt. If you watched my Stashbuster 2 video, you'll remember that it's just so easy to dig into my spare binding basket to save some time when you need it. I separate the batting
from all the fabric. Then I cut any remaining fabric into 2 1/2 inch strips, if I can, and just straight strips
with anything else. The smallest strip I
will cut will be 1 inch. And I have saved the selvage, but I do not actually use the selvages. I bag 'em up and I send 'em
off to somebody else that does. Now, this flannel piece,
I handle exactly the same, except for the big piece. I am not making 2 1/2 inch strips. I save flannel to do other
projects out of them. I make dusters, washcloths,
and some other things. And with all these batting scraps, they're too small to make
into franken-batting, so I'm just chopping
them up into tiny pieces and I will use this in pillows. And I've done a video about this as well, and I'll leave a link in the notes below. So now it's time for another
dive into Mt Scrapmore and I'm finding larger pieces of fabric, I'm finding old fat quarters, and I'm beginning to separate
my solid coloured scraps. Now I have no idea why, but
right from the very beginning, I have always kept my
solid coloured scraps separate from my pattern scraps, and I actually handle
them quite differently. I sort my solid coloured scraps by colour. I do not sort them by size. And I store my fabric with a pattern on it in 5-inch strips and 2 1/2 inch strips and never by colour. This next bunch of fabric
is full of other backing. I guess I must've just
completed a lot of quilts, but there's backing, there's strips, a lot of garbage stuff in here. And I'm suddenly overwhelmed. I have forgotten my cardinal
rule of working with scraps and that is to use my timer. I find myself burnt out. I don't want to touch
these scripts anymore. And I've made an absolute
disaster area of my space. So after yesterday doing too much, today all I'm wanting to do
is to put everything away. And having decluttered and recently organised my sewing space, I have a spot for everything, so it's fairly quick
work to get everything where it needs to be. And after working with all those scraps, my floor needs a good sweep, and my cutting board needs a good clean. I'm just using a ball of
masking tape, sticky side out. It isn't going to be fun,
it's not going to be pretty, but I've set the goal
today to finish processing all the scrap batting in my bucket. Hard to believe that there's a
downside to finishing quilts, but I've let this accumulate too long. One positive thing that
I have found in my bucket is I have started four of my
adding machine crumb strips. So when my timer goes off, I merrily switch gears and get those done. And it's so weird how these can
look like a dog's breakfast, but as soon as you trim
them up, they are special. And I add them to the stack of 60 strips that I've already done, and I store them with my
other works in progress. Then I grab a stack of small
pieces and process some crumbs and then I make some new hexie pieces to replenish my supply. I've got all the batting done,
I processed all the backs. I realise I can put this all away and just attack it again next month. Remember you never ever
conquer Mt Scrapmore, you just keep it in check. So you might be asking what do I do with my pattern strips that I cut into 5 inch, 2 1/5 inch, and the less than two and a half inch? Well, the 5 inch ones I cut normally into 5 inch squares, and I just make cuddle
quilts and crib quilts out of them for the
charity that I donate to. It's just a simple I divide them into light,
medium, and dark values. And then just do 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. The 2 1/5 inch strips, if they are width the fabric,
the scrap sampler block, number two is my preferred block. And if I only have a fat quarter width, then I do the block that
I did first Stashbuster 7. And if they're even smaller than that, then I do the square and
the square or the cross or the 2x2 or if I just have
enough for a mini charm, I use them for the leaders and enders. And as you can see by these piles, they can accumulate quickly. And currently, I have been
using these blocks in backs where I do not have enough
scraps to make an afterquilt. And I use my less than
two and a half inch strips in quilt as you go blocks
and these long braids but I see also in the last couple of days, working through all these scraps that I have a lot of
them right at the moment. And though I have been processing them, I think I'm declaring April get these blocks into
quilts month, so stay tuned. Last week on Karen's Quilt Circle, I was talking with Wendy Chow and we were talking about community. She's an amazing, dynamic woman
and you don't want to miss it so I'll leave a link
in the notes below. If you like these tips and
would like to learn more, please subscribe to my newsletter at justgetitdonequilts.com. If you liked this video,
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