- Hi there, I'm Karen Brown
of Just Get it Done Quilts. Do you have a spot in your
home that looks like this? I call it Mount Scrapmore. And it's just a fact of life. The more you sew, the
more scraps you have. Well, I have some strategies
to help keep it in check, so stick with me and I'll
show you how to do it. (cheerful music) Well, the first step
in managing your scraps is coming to terms with them. Scraps are just something you're
going to have to deal with if you're going to sew. The basket is never going to be
empty, but if you're diligent, Mount Scrapmore can be kept under control, so it doesn't overwhelm
you in your sewing space. So with every problem, there's
three ways of attacking it: prevention, management, and elimination. So I've said it before
and I'll say it again. The first step in managing
your scraps is don't overbuy. If the pattern says buy
three quarters of a yard, you buy three quarters of a yard. Don't be tempted to buy that extra quarter because chances are when
you're finished with a pattern, you're finished with the fabric. You've done it, you've seen it, you don't want to touch it again. And the less you have in your stash, the easier it will be to deal with. Your sewing room will thank you, your brain will thank you, and
your wallet will thank you. You might be asking what an afterquilt is. Well, way back when I
first started quilting, I was doing a Block of the Month Club and by the time I
finished putting together all the sampler blocks, I
was so sick of the fabric, like, I mean, I was just
terribly sick of the fabric that I was determined
that I was going to sew every single piece of that
fabric that I had into a backing so that I didn't have any
pieces to go into my stash. I liked the process so much that I now do it for every quilt, and I call it an afterquilt. And I challenge myself to use as many scraps as possible on the back. Sometimes it's improv exercise. Sometimes it's just a
strip down the middle. Sometimes I'm incorporating
the extra blocks. By doing it this way, very little makes it to my orphan block pile
or my scrap bucket. And if you're interested in a video about how to make an afterquilt, please put it in the comments below. Now, similar to the afterquilt challenge, you can also challenge yourself to make a pillow or a pillowcase with your scraps to match your quilt. There is a woman at my guild
that makes a pillowcase for every quilt that she gives away, and it's actually the
wrapping or the quilt, which I thought was very clever. So here we are at management. Now the best way to manage your scrap pile is to start with the end in mind. Have an endgame. Know what blocks that you want to make so that you can make your
scraps conform to what you need. I was recently at the
Shipshewana Quilt Festival, and this fabulous scrap quilt by quilter Elizabeth
Fitzgerald stood out for me. There was over 7,000 pieces that the quilters needed of
the same size consistently. So before you start
cutting your scraps up, know what size pieces you're going to need for these blocks you're going to use. That way, you have a quick and easy supply so that you can sit down either every day or once a week or once a month and make one, two, or a dozen. Don't sit down and
expect to make a thousand and your quilt will be done. Scrap quilts are best grown
organically from your stash as your scraps become available, and sometimes they take one, two, three, five, even 10 years to make. And don't restrict
yourself just to one block. Have two, three, four styles
because you're not in the mood for the same block every time. Now I'm going to be making a video on all sorts of different
scrap blocks you can make. So when I get that video made,
I'm going to post it up here. Standard cuts. Okay, so you may want to cut your scraps into some standard sizes. You don't necessarily have
a block ready for them but if and when a block presents itself, you want to be ready
with some precut strips. Some people cut them in strips, some people cut them in blocks, but whatever you do, keep it simple. Do what's best for you. You may have substantial
space constraints, so you want something
very simple to store. If you make a system
that's too complicated, either you'll waste too much
time keeping it organised or it will be too complicated and you won't bother to keep it up. So choose two to four sets of strip sizes and just work with those. Don't bother sorting them by colour, but if you really want to sort them, just choose something very simple like high value, medium
value, and low value or warm colours and dark
colours, and black and white. Don't get more complicated than that. I only do 2 1/2-inch
strips and 5-inch strips. Sometimes I cut them into
blocks, sometimes I don't. I find this size very versatile. And I don't separate them
by colour until I need them. And I use these sizes a lot in
I Spy quilts and baby quilt. But again, look at how keen
you are to make scrap blocks and do what's best for
you and your sewing room. When I trim up a quilt, all
that excess backing on the back, those are nice, long strips. They are often with the fabric or larger, and I immediately cut them
into 2 1/2-inch strips. I join them up on my diagonal. I roll them up and use them
for binding on my next quilt. I have them all ready to go. Now everything that I
don't cut into strips, there's a lot of strip offcuts when we're making quilts,
I put in this bag. I call it my improv bag. These are strips that
I use for strip blocks. I use this, I use the irregular shapes for English paper piecing
projects or applique. I just cut out these hexies so I have a stack of
them always ready to go. Now this is my improv bucket. After me showing you this, you may think I need some intervention. I love small pieces. I'm just very miserly with my fabric and I don't like to throw anything out. And if it's small, I
throw it in this bucket and I do improv strips. These are just freeform blocks and I make them all this standard size. I haven't got a quilt yet. It takes a lot of tiny
pieces to make a quilt, but one day, I'll get there. I also use these pieces in postcards. These pieces that I use for
postcards are never going to make any kind of sizable dent in my scrap pile, but they're fun and they're
different from making a quilt and you get to use all
those fancy stitches on your sewing machine. Okay, so the last part of dealing with your scraps is disposal. Now there's no law that says that you have to make scrap blocks. There's many of you I know
that scraps give you hives or give you lots of anxiety. So put 'em in a bag and get rid of them. It's just that easy. Now there's lots of
people that collect scraps and depending on design or
on the size of your scraps, they'll pay good money for them. Just find yourself a
destash site and go for it. But even if you do not want to go with the hassle of evaluating
them and charging for them, there's many people that will
just take them off your hands for the price of the postage, or perhaps at your guild or somewhere, there's a new quilter that
doesn't have much of a stash, they might like them. So I try once a month to
process all these scraps. I put it on my calendar,
I grab a cup of tea, turn on my timer for 60
minutes, and I just go. More often than not, I don't
get to the bottom of the bucket but as long as Mount
Scrapmore isn't growing, I'm good with that. So now tell me what
you do with your scraps to keep them organised. Please put them in the comments below. This is the first in my
series of dealing with scraps. Next week, I'm going to have a video on easy scrap sampler blocks. So if you liked this video,
please give it a thumbs up. If you haven't yet subscribed, please hit that Subscribe button and hit that bell if
you want to be notified when I make a new video. You can also find me on
Instagram and Facebook, @justgetitdonequilts. So take care and I'll see you next time.
