Managing a Large Fabric Stash

 Are you like me and read all the blog posts talking about scrap management, or how people store their stash of fabric? I watch all the YouTube videos on those subjects as well. YouTube quilt studio tours, I watch every one I can find! 

At this point, I've been a serious quilter for almost 20 years, and I've tried a lot of different methods for sorting my stash. Over those 20 years, I've not always had a dedicated sewing room. In fact, over those 20 years my sewing room has been in six different rooms in our house, with multiple times where I had no sewing room at all. It always depended on how many people were living with us at the time. Before I started seriously quilting, I was sewing on commision, and I never had a sewing room at that time, I didn't even have a sewing table, I had to do everything on the kitchen table, then move it all for meals and homeschooling. 

The times I didn't have a sewing room, my fabric was always in totes, usually stuffed into a closet somewhere. At one point, all the totes were under a bed. I think totes are one of the worst ways to store fabric to keep it usable, but you do what you have to do at the time. The reason I don't like totes is even if you are diligent about keeping you fabrics divided, say knits in one tote, and wovens in another, you have to dig through the tote every time you need fabric, and when it's hard to find, and hard to look through, you forget what you have. 

Now that we are empty nesters, I actually have a fabric room, that has my fabric, a huge cutting table and an ironing station, and I have a sewing room, where I have three sewing machines set up at all times. The sewing room is where my design wall is. I'm spoiled, and I know it. I also know that someday we are likely to move and I'll have to downsize my sewing area again, but being the planner I am, I'm already considering how I would do that. We have a tri-level house, so eventually, we are likely to move to single story. 

For those of you who are interesting in stash management, this post is for you, and I'm not only going to go over how I store each stage of fabric in my stash, but I'm also going to tell you why. What I do may not work for you, but my stash management absolutely works for me. 

If you are new to the blog, know that I am a dedicated pre-cutter when it comes to scraps. I can totally understand why someone with a small stash or someone who does a lot of applique may prefer to sort scraps by color and not pre-cut, but with a large stash if I don't pre-cut, there is always a larger piece of fabric that is easier to use than digging through a bin of misc scraps. If I'm going to actually use my my scraps, they need to be easy to grab and use. 

I'm going to start with the scraps first. Why? Because when I am starting a new quilt, my rule is to always use the smallest piece of fabric that will work. If I need a bunch of 2" squares, I'm going to go to my 2" squares, If I need a bunch of 2.5" strips, I'm going to go to my 2.5" strips. 

Since my cutting table is made from cube storage pieces, I've found these type of containers work well for storing strips and squares. 

I store both strips and squares sorted by color, and I store them on end their end so I can flip through them like an index file. Stacks don't work as well for me, because stacks fall over, and pulling something out of a stack messes up the whole stack. By storing the strips like this, I can easily flip through them all, and pull out the strips I want. My squares are stored similarly, but I have them in rows in the same style container. If we ever downsize, my scraps come with me, because my scraps give me the greatest variety of fabrics to play with. 

My next category of fabric is fat quarters. If I cut into a fat quarter for a quilt, anything left gets cut into my Scrap User System sizes, so I have nothing between fat quarters and pre-cut scraps. Fat quarters are my favorite pre-cut, hands down. Now that my goal is to reduce stash, if I find a fabric I really love at a quilt shop, and I just can't pass it by, I usually ask if they'll cut me a fat quarter, and most shops will. My fat quarters are stored in drawers by color. 

I lucked out and found these drawer kitchen cabinets at a building supply resale shop. I love that the drawers pull all the way out. I have a couple drawers full of fat quarters, all sorted by color. Again, if we were to downsize, most of the fat quarters would go with me, for the same reason as the scraps, variety. 

My next category of fabric is one I rarely see people use. I keep fabrics larger than a fat quarter (or 12" WOF) to 1 yard pieces separate. If a fabric is under 12" WOF, I cut it for my Scrap User System. Now I'm going to tell you why this category makes sense to me. Fat quarters are great for variety, and I like my quilts to have a lot of variety, but unless it's a really small project, one fat quarter isn't usually enough to make something. It might be large enough to provide cornerstones for sashing, but probably not enough for the sashing. It's not enough for binding, it's not enough to be a focus of a quilt. But, when we start dealing with half yard to one yard pieces, now we are talking enough fabric for a pillowcase, enough for sashing, enough for a focus fabric on a throw sized quilt, enough for binding. These are the drawers I go to when I need to make a backing just a bit wider, and I need a couple 10" WOF pieced to piece into a strip in the middle of a length of fabric. I store the fat quarter+ to one yard pieces separately, because to me, they are used differently. If I need a backing for a table runner, this is the category, if I'm making pillowcases, this is where I look. Sashing? I look here to see if something here will work. Remember, my cardinal rule on fabric management is to always use the smallest piece that will work. 

The drawers I keep the fat quarter-one yard pieces in aren't as nice as my fat quarter drawers, but they work. Since I fold all the fabric the same, it's pretty easy to see which pieces are likely one yard pieces, by the thickness of the bit you can see. Just like with my fat quarters, and even my scrap strips and squares, there are no stacks here, I can easily flip through the fabrics and see what I've got. If we were to downsize, I'd likely try to reduce this part of my stash by at least 50%, only keeping what I really love. 

Anything over 1 yard I consider yardage and that goes on my IKEA Billy bookcases.

All of this is normal width yardage, anything over 1 yard. All my mini-bolts are wrapped on corrugated plastic DH cut to size for me. I joke with DH that yardage is for backings. Of course, yardage is also for backgrounds and borders, and on the rare occasion I'm only using a few fabrics in a quilt top. Again, no stacks, I can easily find and grab any fabric I've got. This is where I'd be ruthless if we downsized, I'd try to get it down by 75%. I'd hope to keep half the bookshelves, but if we downsized, I'd need to get rid of more than half of this fabric so I could move the solids I have on bolts to minibolts, as well as have space for the widebacks I have. 

I'm in no hurry to downsize. We are debating a move to the midwest, the region most of our kids live in, but as long as DD#2 lives here in town, we'll likely stay here. If she and her family were to move, we would definitely move. If we are all still in town ten years from now, we'll likely move to to a single story house, but for now, I'll enjoy the space I have, and the stash I have. At today's prices I'd never be able to have what I've got, even after inheriting several people's stashes. 

Now, why do I think my stash management system works for me? 

1) I can find what I'm looking for easily.

2) My fabric is stored in categories that work for the way I think and quilt. 

3) By always using the smallest piece of fabric that works, I am keeping the smaller pieces moving out, so when I'm under a yard from the yardage shelves, I have space in the drawers for the smaller piece, or when I'm cutting for the Scrap User System, I can put things away immediately. Everything may have looked full, but there is squishing room. 😉

4) I've successfully kept my system going for years. I currently have a stack of empty mini-bolt plastics that are available for any new yardage. This morning I cut a piece of yardage I needed, the remainder was less than one yard, so it went into the fat quarter-one yard drawers. Yesterday I used a piece from those drawers, had less than 12" WOF left, so I cut it into strips and put it into the strip containers. My stash is moving through the system, working for me, not against me. 

I do have a few more categories. I keep my fabric panels together, I have a bin of 1930's repro fabrics, precuts are together, and my steampunk fabrics are together. My 6.5" novelty squares are in their own drawer. I usually break up fat quarter bundles as soon as I get them. I plan by color, not designer, and I don't like quilts that are too matchy. I do have a few quilt kits, stored in bins in my cube storage cutting table. I have strings sorted by color in a 9" cube storage unit, and I have crumbs sorted by color in color coded small bins. I think everyone has those misc. things that they want separate. I know most people do that with holiday fabric, but I don't really buy that, the little I have was likely given to me and it's just mixed in the stash by color. Of course, most people probably don't have a steampunk fabric collection, but I love it so....

Hopefully this post helps someone. If anyone would like a post on how I store other quilting items, just ask and I'll see what I can do. 

Revisiting the Poly Batting Scraps

 Normally when I am making Frankenbatting, I am very careful to only use very similar weights of batting together. Of course I sort by fiber content as well, but I like to use low loft with low loft, and high loft with high loft as well. 

When I finished basting the last poly Frankenbatt that had been matched with a quilt top, I went through the remaining poly batting scraps again. I had the baby sized batting I had pieced but had no quilt top for, could I make it a bit larger and match it with a quilt top? I dug out every poly batting scrap I still had, including the pieces I had cut off from the Frankenbatts I had made after the quilts were basted, and a scrap left from the last piece of my poly batting roll. Did you catch that? The LAST piece from my poly batting roll! I am in no way short on batting right now, I have a full roll of Warm and Natural, along with a partial roll of the same (almost gone). I also have a mostly full roll of Hobbs 80/20, but as far as 100% poly is concerned, aside from a couple of prepackaged battings, I am out of poly batting. 

The fact that I'm not going to be having a steady stream of poly batting scraps coming in for a while, made me feel like keeping any poly batting scraps right now would be silly. With the decision to not save any poly batting scraps right now, I looked at what I had left differently. If I ignored loft, I could not only make the baby batting into a throw, I could also make a second throw sized batting. Sure, it was more piecing than I normally like to do with poly batting, but to get two more donation quilts finished with batting scraps? It's a win in my book.

I basted one of those, and, yes, I could feel the difference in loft while basting. I'm hoping it's less noticeable once its quilted. Would I mix lofts from now on? Probably not, but for right now, when I have no plans to buy more poly batting, and I just want to use what I have, finishing two more quilts is worth the variance. 

The last poly Frankenbatt turned out larger than I expected, but these scraps are going to be tossed after I baste it and trim the edges. I like to only have about an inch of the backing and batting hanging past the quilt top when it comes time to quilt it. I'll trim it exactly after quilting. Those batting scraps will be tossed, guilt free. Since I just opened a roll of Hobbs 80/20, I'll use the hamper I had been using for poly batting scraps for the 80/20 scraps instead. 

The to-be-quilted pile is growing, but so far the quilt top stash doesn't seem to be going down much. I have WAY too many quilt tops right now, so finishing needs to be my focus for a long while. 

Basting Spree with Frankenbatting

 Before I tackle my cotton batting scraps, I wanted to baste all the poly Frankenbattings I had matched up with quilt tops. As you can see, I have one quilt laid out ready to baste. The pile under the window holds nine basted quilts. Next to the big pile of basted quilts is one more quilt to be basted, after I piece a backing for it, and I have yet another quilt that I basted in the sewing room on my quilting table. I've been quilting too, so I am repurposing pins as soon as I take them out of whatever I'm quilting at the time. 

I think I have enough larger pieces of batting scraps that I might be able to make the batting that I hadn't matched up with a top large enough to match a quilt top. The smallest poly batting scraps I'm saving for a pillow form, the heavily pieced scraps I'm tossing guilt free. At some point it needs to hit the end of the line. 

One thing I did before I tackled the poly batting scraps at all, was to go through my fabric shelves and pull out any yardage I wanted out of my stash. A lot of those are novelty fabrics left from the scrub top days, when I was making them on commission. I'm at the point where if no one in my immediate family is interested in whatever is on the novelty fabric, and I don't like it well enough to make a quilt based on it, even for donation, I want it out of the house. I knew I could make a bunch of pillowcases from those fabrics and donate those, and that still may happen, but right now, I've been using as many as those fabrics as I can in the quilt backings I've been piecing. 

A lot of my donation quilts are scrappy, most are color controlled in some manner. For example, the one on the table to be basted is autumn colors. If there is a fabric in my stack of unwanted fabrics that matches the front at all, I'm using it for a backing. I'm still having to add more fabric to make the backings wide enough, so I'm going into my under 1 yard drawers looking for anything I can add to the main fabric to add a center strip of contrasting fabric to the backing. All in all, it's stashbusting at it's finest. Scrap quilt tops, frankenbatting, and fabrics I want out of the stash for the backings. The fabrics I'm using aren't ugly or sub-par in quality, they just aren't fabrics I'm excited about making a focus. When I was buying fabrics for scrub tops, I usually purchased 2.5 yards, so if it's a small throw, I can sometimes piece the whole backing from the fabric, but mostly I'm adding to them. 

My pile of scraps from the new backings is piling up, so I'll have to tackle cutting scraps again, but it's definitely manageable right now. I'd like to baste until I'm out of pins, so once that happens, I'll tackle the backing scraps. I'm not using any widebacks for these quilts, my personal rule of thumb is that if the quilt top isn't at least a twin sized, I would prefer piecing yardage rather than wasting wideback on it. I have more than enough pins to baste these two poly Frankenbatt quilts, so perhaps I'll be basting things made with cotton Frankenbatts soon, I'll be on my last jar of pins by then, so we'll see. Out of my four jars of pins, I've got one full jar left, and less than half of another. Depending on how it works out with quilting new quilts and reclaiming pins, and when I actually start with the cotton batting, could go several ways. 

Baby Sunflower Quilt- Finish #10

 I am actually keeping up with my goal of finishing two quilts per month!  This is my latest finish.

I had leftover bits from the big sunflower quilt I made. I managed to use them up in this baby quilt. I've got a great niece or nephew on the way, and I already had a baby boy quilt set aside for that baby, then I started thinking girl, so I finished this one. Now when they have the gender reveal, I'll be ready either way! 

I quilted the same freeform sunflowers I quilted on the larger quilt. I even used the same thread color because I was happy with how it looked on the big quilt. 

I sewed a crochet hook roll for one of my granddaughters, but I was in such a hurry to get it in the mail for her birthday, I completely forgot to take a photo. If you are in need of one of those, I used this tutorial, which was easy to follow. 

Civil War Progress

 All of my Civil War reproduction fabrics are now cut into strips, for the patterns I'm currently cutting. Most of the strips are normal sizes, only the 1.25" strips are odd for me. If this is too much fabric for what I am making, no worries, with these sizes of strips I have a lot of options. Since my goal is to bust all of this fabric this year, I may as well cut it into strips. 

The 1.25" strips were turned into four patches.

For the Trail Mix quilt, one of the blocks needed these tiny four patches, and another needed the tiny four patches plus 3" nine patches.

I lost count and have a few extra of both of those, but I never worry about extra units, they all get used eventually, and I already know I need to make a table runner from these fabrics, so extra units will likely end up there. 

As I'm cutting for the second two quilts, I'm clipping everything for each block together, and putting the fabrics in the tote bag. Trail Mix uses five different blocks, but the third quilt I'm making is repeats of one of those blocks, I'm almost done cutting Trail Mix, then I'll just be cutting the last block until I'm out of the correct sized strips for it. 

I've already put my 2.5" and 1.5" strips downstairs for now. I've used all I needed from them for now, so these will become another project. These strip sizes play together nicely, so no worries on that front. When I decide what I want to do with them, I may go ahead and cut the project, or I might just make notes and cut it later. I've got several leader/ender projects cut right now. so until I make progress on those, these strips can wait. 

As far as the Civil War Sampler quilt for DD#1 goes, I've finished sewing the scrappy sashing and scrappy cornerstones. The purple in the bottom of that basket will be the setting triangles. The pattern shows scrappy setting triangles, but I usually prefer them to match, so I bought some yardage.

I've got ten of the sampler blocks done now. I'd like to have this done for Christmas, but we'll see. It's not my main project, I'm doing it as leader/enders as much as possible. 

Now that I've used the 1.25" strips, and I put aside the remaining 2.5" and 1.5" strips, I'm only working with 2" and 3.5" strips. I'll keep cutting until I'm out of these strips. I'm sure I'll have a stack of squares of each size leftover, but I plan on cutting as efficiently as I can to get the most blocks as I can. Not all of the Sampler quilt blocks will be good leader/enders, but the blocks I'm cutting now will all work quite well in that role. 

Even if I don't show this project for a bit, know that it's being sewn in the background. 

Finish #9

 Things are moving along here. I needed to make another scooter quilt, because DH added another scooter rally to his business trip. I had one cut out, and now it's finished. 

I really like doing split borders on Attic Windows quilts. I feel like it really brings the interior design to the border. 

I've been doing a lot of non-quilting related stuff too. DD#2 and I have been been splitting produce boxes from a no food waste program. You get 70 pounds of produce for $20. You don't get a choice of produce, it just whatever there is excess from at restaurants and grocery stores that donate. 

We did it two weeks in a row, so we had 70 pounds of produce each over the two weeks, even splitting boxes. Since the produce needs to used immediately, we've both been meal planning around what's in the boxes, but there's still too much to be used right away. Good thing I'm an old pro at freezing produce. Needless to say, there's been a lot of blanching, ice baths, and chopping of stuff around here.

I made a big batch of salsa verde from the tomatillos I got, and last night we had Salsa Verde chicken made in the slow cooker. Today I froze the remaining salsa verde, some in an ice cube tray so we'd have small amounts for eggs, and the rest in the amount I need for salsa verde chicken. DH wants salsa verde chicken burritos next time, last night I served it over cilantro lime rice. Burritos are tricky since he's gluten-free. So many of the GF tortillas fall apart. I'm thinking I might try making an enchilada casserole type thing with the salsa verde chicken. I've got enough salsa verde in the freezer to make it several times, so I can experiment a bit. 

I tried making a raw Brussel Sprout slaw, and it's pretty good, the recipe I used called for dried cherries, but I subbed cherry flavored craisins because they were half the price. I had the sliced almonds the recipe called for, so no problem there. Usually I roast Brussel sprouts, but we had a bunch of those last week, so I wanted something different. 

I froze some tomatoes to use in sauce later on, and I actually tried freezing cucumbers in a sugar brine, which I had never tried before. I froze some green beans that I'll cook up on Mother's Day, they wouldn't have lasted a week in the fridge. I also froze a bunch of bell peppers, some sliced for slow cooker fajitas, and some diced for our frequent Cajun dishes. DH and I like our food spicy, so Cajun and Mexican foods are a regular around here. 

Tonight or tomorrow night I'm going to turn a stuffed acorn squash recipe into more of a casserole. I've always found eating stuffed vegetables fiddly, so I'll take the same ingredients, but cut them up and layer them. I'm using Italian sausage and spinach with the acorn squash, and I think it will be delicious. 

I've been reverse meal planning for a while now, always looking at what food we have in the house, and basing our meals on that instead of deciding on a menu and buying all the stuff for that. Reverse meal planning saves us a lot of money, and it keeps us from wasting food that we already paid for. By meal planning in reverse and freezing extra meals I can usually skip the grocery shopping one week a month, which again, helps us save money. Having meals in the freezer also gives me more sewing time, which is another win! 

Finish #8

 Here we are, the end of April, and I'm going to show you finish number 8 for 2026! So far I'm keeping up with my goal of averaging two quilt finishes per month.

This quilt top has been hanging in the quilt closet for quite a while. It wasn't hanging there because I didn't like it, quite the opposite. This quilt is one I designed, and I like it a lot, so I wanted to make sure this went to a special person. I finally decided on a recipient, so it was time for it to move to to the front of the quilting queue. 

The sunflower fabric was actually what was left from some table runners I made for a wedding several years ago. To cut the table runners to the size we needed, I ended up with about a nine inch long narrow strip down the length of the several yards of fabric leftover. I cut the very long narrow strip into 8.5" squares, then played around in EQ to find an alternate block I liked. The edges were a bit tricky, because using full blocks to the edge left the design feeling unfinished. I opted to make modified half blocks along the edges to fix that issue to my satisfaction.

Choosing a thread color was tricky. The border and some of the fabrics are dark, but the cream background is very light. I auditioned a cream, several yellows, and a light green that had a hint of blue. The cream and yellows showed up way too much on the dark colors, and the teal was stark on the cream. The light green worked best for what I wanted on this quilt. Sometimes I purposely go for a lot of contrast, but that wasn't what I wanted on this quilt. 

I really wanted to quilt sunflowers on this quilt, and I've never quilted sunflowers before, but that's never stopped me before. I used a 90" wide minky for the backing, so I knew the quilting. was really going to show on the back. It's not perfect, I kept changing how I travelled to put a new sunflower where I wanted it. By the time I was finished the quilting, I had settled on which method I preferred to travel with this design, but if the recipient looks closely, they'll see variances in different sections of the quilt.

You can see the light green wasn't too harsh against either the dark or the light areas. 

My sunflowers got pretty stylized trying to fill the space, but overall, I'm pretty happy with how the quilting came out! Sometimes I stop and think that if my past self that was just learning to FMQ, could see what I can do now, she'd be pretty happy that my quilting journey has progressed as well as it has. I'm not great at drawing, I've only ever been a doodler, but FMQ skills do build on each other, and by turning the rounded daisy design I've quilted several times into more flame shaped leaves (I've quilted flames several times as well), I think it made for a decent sunflower design. Could someone else have done better? Absolutely, but others may not have done as well. I don't think I'll ever feel like I am advanced as far as FMQ goes, but I'm not really a beginner either. What I am is perfectly capable of quilting my own quilts, and that was my goal all along. 

Just an FYI, the fabrics in the quilt and the backing minky are teal, a teal that is more green than blue. The photos make it look more blue than it reads in person. The sunflower fabrics have green and blue in the background, it's really a pretty even mix. 

Civil War or Bust

  No, this is not a political statement of any kind, I'm talking about Civil War Era reproduction fabrics. One of my 2026 goals was to bust my Civil War era fabrics. DD#1 wants a Civil War era quilt, and I just finished cutting it out. Well, it's cut out aside from borders and setting triangles for which I need to buy yardage. I just ordered the fabric for the setting triangles, but we chose a fabric from an upcoming line for the border, so I can't order it yet. It's a sampler quilt so it will take me a while to sew all those different blocks. I did cut out all the blocks and pieced sashing and cornerstones, but each block has the pieces clipped together with a note of the name of the block, and the page number of the directions for sewing it together. 

The reason I bought Civil War prints in the first place was because I wanted to make this Trail Mix quilt. Since it's very scrappy, I only purchased fat eighths and fat quarters, and no yardage at all. Thus me having to buy some yardage for DD#1's quilt. Since the center of hers is a sampler, the fat eighths and fat quarters worked fine. The Trail Mix quilt also uses several different blocks, so again, I'll be clipping and labeling each block. The Trail Mix quilt uses pieces as small as 1.25" square, so I'm using all but the tiniest bits of these fabrics.

This is the plastic cup I use while cutting, it's about the size of a coffee cup. The scraps from these quilts are tiny, because I need such small pieces for several of blocks. 

I am just starting to cut the Trail Mix quilt, and I think I'll have plenty of fabric for it. I picked a third pattern for any fabric left after that, and most of the sizes of strips I need are the same as what I need for the Trail Mix quilt. Looking at how much fabric I have left after cutting the Civil War Sampler quilt, I think I'll have enough fabric left for a third quilt, but what size that quilt will be is a mystery! I do think three quilts will finish off the fabric, with maybe some bits for my scrap user system. I'd like to make DD#1 a few pillow shams as well, so any remaining bits may go towards that end as well. I'm hoping the leftover yardage from her setting triangles and border will be enough fabric for borders and backings on the pillow shams. If not, I'll use something from stash that looks 1800's-ish even if it's not a repro print. 

The advantage to cutting out three quilts at once, is I only have to press all the fabrics once, no having to repress when I get it out to cut another quilt. Also, this gives me leader/enders for likely the rest of the year. I'd like to have DD#1's quilt done for Christmas, but the other two have no deadlines at all, so perfect for leader/enders! 

Finish #7

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you may recognize these fabrics as those I used in two different crazy quilts. When I was finished cutting out the crazy quilt blocks, I cut the remaining fabric into 2.5" strips, and I made this concentric square quilt. 

When I started working with these fabrics, I started with some half yard-one yard pieces from a line of fabric I liked, Paisley Place by Wilmington Fabrics. I didn't buy yardage of all the prints, and I purchased multiple yards of the border print. I supplemented from my stash so the end result was likely half stash and half the line of fabric. I got three quilts from that, two crazy quilts (one of which was queen sized, one throw), plus this quilt which is twin sized. All the yardage I had from the line is gone, but I happened upon a jelly roll of that fabric on clearance, and I still have that unopened. I rarely get asked for quilts with pink in them, so I had fun working with it. It seems like most of the girls and women I know are anti-pink. One of my nieces was the focus of the first quilt though, and her favorite color is pink, plus she's a huge fan of neutrals. I was stumped untl I saw that fabric line, and then I was inspired. My niece is an adult, and up until I saw this line of fabric I was afraid a pink quilt might come off as childish. I have made other quilts with hot pink and black that weren't childish at all, but since she prefers light pink I was a bit hesitant. 

My niece has her crazy quilt, and a friend of my granddaughter claimed the second crazy quilt, this one will likely be donated unless someone claims it first. It's hanging on my wall quilt rack so I can enjoy it for a bit before it moves on. 

It's mid-April and I've got 7 quilts done so far this year, so I am on schedule to get two quilts done per month this year. I know I'll have some catch-up to do later in the year, because we do have some travel planned, but currently I'm basting the quilts I made Frankenbatting for, and they are all throw sized, so once I start quilting those they should go quickly. 

One really fun thing we did this week was absolutely not quilt related. DH and I love live theater, and he bought us tickets to see the traveling Broadway version of Back to the Future-the Musical. It was on the University of Arizona campus, and since we got there early we had fun people watching for a bit, I was really surprised by the number of dogs on campus. Anyway, the show was great, it was the first show I've seen that used projectors heavily to add scenery to the stage. Between the projectors being able to make the scenery change quickly and the rotating stage, they really did manage to make the car look like it was moving fast, even though it wasn't moving much. One of my favorite things about live theater is watching the sets and seeing how they handle moving them between scenes. The car even "flies" at the end, just like in the movie. 

 

Frankenbatting Monster

 Soooooooo many batting scraps! I just finished up with the poly batting scraps! Final total? I pieced 11 battings that are matched with quilt tops. I pieced another batting that will work for a baby quilt, except I'm think I'm out of baby quilt tops, if I come across one I'll match it up. I have some misc. smallish pieces left that will work for book sleeves. I'd like to make a sleeve for my Ipad and Kindle for travel. 

When I started both of these pop up hampers were crammed full of poly batting scraps. The scraps were all compressed and it was crazy how much was in there. Not to mention all the poly batting scraps that never made it into a hamper and were just in a pile. You can't really tell in the pic, but the pile that's in there now is all fluffy and still not half full. That includes the baby quilt batting I pieced, along with the smaller scraps I want to use in small projects. 

I don't enjoy piecing poly batting, but 11 (12 counting the baby batting I don't have matched) battings basically for free? Totally worth it. I do have a tip that yields better results when piecing batting. 

I use a blind hem foot when piecing batting. If you push the straight edges towards that center blade, and use a wide zigzag, you are golden on joining the edges. Also, if you look closely, the zig zag stitches are being formed over the little finger that extends behind the needle. That makes the zig zag stitches a bit looser, and keeps the batting from bunching up on you. Of course, you still need to make sure the presser foot doesn't get caught in the batting, which is why poly batting is a pain to piece. I've never had that happen with cotton batting.

Pieced batting lying nice and flat with no bunching.

In the interest of full disclosure, I also have the skinny strips from squaring up the batting scraps. I have a lot of them.

I usually toss these, but I'm going to make a 16x38" pillow form and use these to stuff it. I think I'm going to cut the scraps up even smaller, but if you use batting scraps for stuffing and have any tips, please let me know! 

I could tackle cotton batting next, but that is not my plan. My next job is to piece backings for all the quilt tops that are matched with batting now, and baste as I can. I'm currently quilting the last quilt I had basted, so I need to baste more quilts anyway. With almost all my basting pins available, and most of the quilts needing basting just being throw sized, I should be able to baste most if not all of them. Once I'm done piecing the backings, I'll start piecing the cotton batting, whether or not the basting is done. 

When I baste those quilts, I will have scraps of batting from the Frankenbatts. What am I going to do with those? I am going to throw them away, guilt-free. I made myself a deal a long time ago, that if I make Frankebatts to save money, then I could toss any scraps from the Frankenbatting. It's worth it to me to piece larger pieces of batting, it is not worth it to me to piece very small pieces, which is what I'll have since I was making batting the right sizes for quilt tops I had. Sure, some might end up in a pillow, but if some ends up in the trash, I'm ok with that, after all, I'll have a dozen quilts that have batting saved from the trash. 

Oh, and the fabric scraps I showed in my last post, that were from the tote of fabric given to me? It did just take two evenings to cut it into scrap user system sizes. I've got something new I'm working on in the evenings now, but I'll tell you about that later 😉

Finish #6

 

It took me a while before this quilt became my main focus. DH retired the beginning of last year, and I didn't get his scrub top quilt finished until late March this year. Our anniversary is March 30, so I really wanted it finished by then, and once it was my main project, it came together pretty quickly. The pattern is called Chapel Glass. Of course it would look more like stained glass with different fabric choices (I'd like to make it again with a black background and batiks), but there were a lot of scrub tops with black in them, so I opted for a gray background instead. The size of the main unit worked well with the scale of most of the novelty prints. This pattern would be easier with non-directional fabrics, I really had to pay attention to which corner I was adding sew and flip corners to. I found it a bit funny that I was cutting apart scrub tops I had made him, then making him a quilt from the same fabric. Usually when I'm working with men's shirts, I didn't sew the shirt in the first place, but this time I did! 

I did get to give him the quilt for our anniversary. His anniversary gift to me will happen in April. He bought us tickets to see the Broadway version of Back to the Future the Musical. I love live theater, and when a good Broadway show comes to town I'm always game for it. It's been a while since we saw a Broadway show, so I'm thrilled we are going! It's hard to believe we've been married 42 years already! I'd still choose him, and I'm pretty sure he'd still choose me. 

My standard quilting goal is to get two quilts finished per month. With six quilts finished so far this year, I'm right at that goal. I've already started quilting the next quilt, and both that and another need to be finished in April, so hopefully all of that will get done, and I'll stay on track.

I have already started working through my batting scraps to make Frankenbatting. I'm starting with the poly batting, because I don't like piecing it. Cotton batting is much easier to piece. So far I've made three battings to match with three quilt tops. I've got SO many quilt tops right now, I'm just matching up similar sized batting scraps, sewing those together, and then checking to see if I have a quilt top about that size. I know I'll have more batting scraps after a basting spree, and I'll deal with that later. I'm mostly piecing batting for throw sized quilts. If it's twin or larger I prefer to use batting off the roll. Speaking of rolls of batting, I just finished off another roll of batting too, so the Frankenbatting sessions are well timed. I'm going to try cutting up the smallest batting scraps into very small pieces, and make some pillow forms from them. The cost of pillow forms is getting crazy, and I have a couple pillow patterns I'd like to make.

Oh, I went through the tote of fabric I was given, and the wideback fabric was put away, the yardage is on minibolts and put away, and the fat quarter-1 yard pieces are folded and put away. 

There were a few odd shaped pieces I decided to cut up and add to my scrap user system. Compared to how much I had to cut before, this isn't much, and I'm thinking no more than a week before it's all processed. I'd say just two or three days, but with Easter coming up we've got family stuff going on, so there may be days I don't cut at all. I'm only working on scraps in the evening, am most nights for an hour or so, but since it all needs to be pressed before it's cut, it takes a little longer. At any rate, the fabric tote I showed in the last post is empty, and now that those fabrics are integrated into my stash they will get used much faster. 

Empty Bin!

My goal was to empty this bin by the end of March, and I did it! Every piece of scrap fabric in these bins has been dealt with. Strings and crumbs are in with the strings and crumbs, anything larger than that has been cut into sizes I have planned to use in upcoming quilts. A lot of the scraps have already been used in quilt tops! 

I have been watching lots of scrap fabric videos on YouTube. Mostly what I've learned is that scraps are a very personal thing. Some people don't enjoy working with them, and if that describes you, by all means, give them away, or even sell them if you can. I love working with scraps, but I have learned by trial and error what works for me.

 

I notice that a lot of quilters only sort their scraps by color, and don't pre-cut anything. I do sort crumbs and strings by color, because that is how I use them. I like crumb blocks to be one base color, and not a mishmash of everything. String quilts I sometimes mix up, but if I do mix them I tend to have a color scheme going. I currently have a blue/purple string quilt in the works, but I've done several in autumn colors, but whatever I do it's easiest for me to have them sorted by color. 

Anything larger than a crumb or string, and I only use them if they are cut to size. A bin of messy fabric scraps, even if they are all the same color, does not inspire me, it just makes me realize how much work it's going to take to press it all and get it ready to use. On the other hand, give me a box of scraps already cut to size that I can start sewing right now, that gives me inspiration! This go around, I did cut a lot of rectangles, but that is because I have several quilts I want to make that use them. Normally I only cut squares or strips. My strips are sorted by size, and color. Let's say I need a bunch of 2.5" red strips, I can go grab them because they are all together. Green 2" strips, same thing, I can go grab them. My squares start out sorted by color, but they get mixed up a lot, so normally they are not, but they are always stored neatly in stacks or rows, so it's not that difficult to go through them and pick out what I need. 

I've been wondering how much of our scrap preferences is a result of the way we think, and how much is about the size the our stash. My stash is BIG, so I never worry about the "What if I cut this down into strips, and then I decide I should have cut a larger strip?" Honestly, that question just never applies to me. If I don't have the color I need already cut to size, I'm just going to go to yardage and use a different fabric. I almost always have something else that will work. Maybe it's not as perfect as the scrap I cut up, but the person who's getting the quilt never saw the other fabric so they won't care. If I had a very small stash, that question would pop up a lot, and I could totally see sorting scraps by color without pre-cutting.

I think the size of your stash determines what you think of as a scrap too. To me, with a large stash, anything smaller than a fat quarter is a scrap, and if it's full WOF, anything narrower than 12" is a scrap. If I think it's ugly, it goes into scraps and gets cut up even if I have two yards of it. 

Does that mean I don't like fat eighths or precuts? Nope, I actually prefer buying fat eighths if I want to make a Civil War or 1930's repro quilt, because I get variety without a huge amount of fabric coming in. I don't make a lot of quilts like that, so fat eighths or other precuts are a great choice for that. Because I don't make a lot of quilts like that, as soon as I'm done making the quilt, I'm going to process any scraps and just use them as a color afterwards. 

I like other pre-cuts when I want a fun fabric fix without bringing in a lot of fabric. If I wanted to try using some Tula Pink fabric, for instance, which I have never purchased but I do like, I'd be most likely to get a pre-cut, likely a layer cake since she has some large scale prints. I like Tula Pink fabric, but don't want a stash filled with it, so a pre-cut or maybe a scrap bag if I could find one, would work best for me. I could have fun making one project, and be done with it. 

Last week was spring break for the grandkids, so I didn't get much sewing done, but I finished with the scraps and made memories with the grands, so big win on both counts. I've even got all the scraps (aside from some strips) put away in their correct containers. I'll put the strips away this afternoon. 

So what is my next project to tackle in the evenings while watching TV?

I was given all the fabric in this bin, but I haven't sorted it yet. I already dealt with the small scraps and strips I was given (I've already used almost all the strips). This bin has everything from under a fat quarter pieces to wide backs. I need to sort this and get it integrated with my stash. Wide backs go into the quilt closet with the quilt tops. Anything over one yard goes onto my fabric shelves, fat quarter - one yard pieces gets folded and put into my fabric drawers. That's what works for me. I'm not likely to even think of going into the bin, I need to get it all integrated with my stash so when I'm looking for something I'll see it. There are some great fabrics in here, but I have to see them to use them. If I find any pieces smaller than a fat quarter I'll be cutting scraps again, and that's perfectly OK. 

Sorting the fabrics will give me loads of inspiration, but I'll need to reign myself in. I have two quilt tops to finish, then I'll finally move on to piecing my batting scraps. I should be able to finish the quilt tops this weekend, so April will be Frankenbatting month! I can't spend all month on batting, because I need to make a couple small projects for May birthdays, but I need to at least deal with all the poly batting scraps, and it's a LOT. I'd like to get several quilts basted in May, so spending April on Frankenbatting will work perfectly with my May goal. 

 

Still Processing Scraps

Scraps...the word brings both joy and dread to my heart. If you craft at all, you have scraps. DH has wood scraps in his workshop, DD#2 is drowning in yarn scraps from her crochet projects, and I have fabric scraps, sooooo many fabric scraps. Sometimes I am very good about processing my fabric scraps immediately, other times I toss them in a bin and deal with them later. Later has come, and has been here for about six weeks. When I am far behind on dealing with scraps, I try to do a little bit at a time to get caught up. I can't just power through and get it done in a couple of days. If you can, that's awesome, but I can't. 

I go through phases when it comes to scraps. When I first started quilting, I did a lot of kitchen sink type of scrap quilts. Mostly divided into dark and light, but aside from that, no rhyme nor reason on which scraps were used together. I love those type of quilts, give me a super scrappy log cabin quilt set in a barn raising setting and I'm in love. My family? They want a less scrappy look. I started doing color controlled scrappy quilts and those went over better. In fact, the scrappy quilts that go over best with my family are two color quilts, blue and yellow, red and white, black and pink, brown and cream, it doesn't really seem to matter which color combination I do, but if I stick to just two colors, I can get away with using any fabric of those colors and everyone is happy. I've had pretty good luck with all cool colors, or all warm colors with a neutral too. Since I love autumn colors, I still make a lot of autumn themed scrap quilts. Those get mixed reviews from the peanut gallery. 

I don't keep very many of my quilts, most of my quilts are gifted or donated. Since I know there are all kinds of taste in the world, I just hope that whatever quilts I donate end up with whomever will be blessed by that particular quilt.

I even go through phases on what patterns I use for scrap quilts. One year it's log cabins, I went through a Flying Geese stage, and HST's are always a winner. Some years it's stars, QST's, or rail fence blocks. I like blocks that chain, and create a lattice on the quilt, so Jacob's Ladder, Carolina Chain and nine patches can be good ones.

I started with my scrap bin overflowing, more than twice than what should actually be in the bin.

This is my scrap bin right now, about half full, but considering I've actually refilled it a couple times as I clean up more of my sewing spaces, I'm pretty happy with that. 

While I was cutting scraps, I used whatever I could in current projects, so a lot of what I was dealing with was used immediately. 

The scraps I'm cutting to specific sizes are piling up. All the squares are sizes I always save, the rectangles I'm cutting are for specific projects.

When I am cutting fabrics I treat novelty scraps differently than say a floral or stripe. If I am going to pre-cut novelty scraps into sizes for I Spy quilts, my go to is 6.5" cut squares. I have a lot of patterns that use that size square, and even most large scale novelty prints do OK in that size. If I don't have a large enough size scrap to do a 6.5" square, my next choice is a 4.5" square. I don't use these as often, but I have made a few I Spy quilts with that size. I rarely use 5" squares for anything, but I do have a cat quilt partially cut out that needs 5" squares, so any cat fabrics I found were cut to that size. I have a pretty nasty allergy to cats, but several of my grandkids love them. You can see I have a big pile of novelty rectangles on the left, they are cut 3.5" x 6.5". When I'm done cutting scraps, I'm going to go through that pile and separate the fabrics into a pile of vertically oriented motifs, and another pile of horizontally oriented motifs. I want to make an I Spy quilt using Bonnie Hunter's Bricks and Stepping Stones pattern with the vertically oriented rectangles, then, with the horizontally oriented ones, I have a pattern in my head which I'm calling "I Spy a Brick Wall". I'm planning on using solid gray sashing for mortar, and with the addition of squares on some rows, I think I can get a good brick wall effect. I'm really excited about sewing that quilt up, and seeing if it looks as good in real life as it does in my head. 

I had a big pile of 3.5" squares, but those are now used in one of the latest quilts to hit the design wall. 

I had already assembled a few rows before I remembered to snap a photo, so the quilt will be taller than this. Yes, it's a kitchen sink light/dark scrappy, but sometimes I just have to, I love them. 

I did notice several of my scraps would play together nicely, so I cut a quilt from those while I was dealing with them.

I sewed up all these blocks as leaders/enders while I was assembling the orphan block quilts. Now I'm sewing these up into quilt tops so they don't get added to the tote that has quilt blocks in it. I've still not started on the batting scraps, I think that project is going to get moved to April. DH  added another scooter quilt to my to-do list, which is fine, I already had one mostly cut out, but now that I'm working on making another quilt top, I'm finishing up a few more projects that were hanging around, using all of these as leaders/enders for each other. 

I did get a couple more quilts basted, but I'm still figuring out a quilt setup. My Janome had lousy timing to break, but then again, a machine breaking is never convenient. 

This week I've got the granddogs, who I swear demand more attention than the grandkids! I enjoy having the dogs around, but it does cut into my productivity, I can only listen to them whine for attention so long before I give in. I can still work on cutting scraps in the evening, that will be DH's time to pet the dogs! 

Life Is Currently Exceeding My Speed Limit

 You know those times where everything is changing so quickly that you just need everything to slow down? That was definitely the feeling I was getting this week. Some of the things going on are good. I had two of the grandkids for four days, another two I saw two days in a row though they didn't spend the night. All good there, we had an outing with four of the grandkids to Rooster Cogburn's Ostrich Ranch which was a blast, even with one of the grands finding out, yes, ostriches do bite. 

That was all fun stuff, playing games with the teens, where DH was lamely trying to say jars are mostly used for protection, so the running gag during the game of Slapzi was explaining how every item on the cards could be used for protection. Good memory making fun.

One thing that was not on the good times list, was my mom has spent the last week in the hospital. We live in a different state, so it was a lot of calling the hospital and seeing how things were going. We couldn't go out there because DH was scheduled for back surgery this morning, which coincidentally, ended up when my mom was having a heart valve replaced. In fact, I had to excuse myself from the room where we were getting the info on DH's procedure, to take a phone call from the hospital my mom was at. They were both in surgery at exactly the same time, though DH's surgery was much shorter, and his was outpatient, so I've got a bag full of dressing supplies and a recovering husband here at home. My mom came through her heart valve surgery like a champ, and she is doing well too, though in the hospital for at least one more day. Although all of that was stressful, the good outcomes put those in the good column after all. 

I had planned to spend March piecing batting scraps together, and that is still the plan, though I haven't started yet. I had a few more quilt tops I wanted to sew together from my February "Let's get these quilt blocks into quilt tops" push. 

I did get the remaining quilt blocks/misc. units into one tote! Considering I started February with almost three times this much, that's a win. I put the tote under the stairs, and don't really have plans to pull it out again until fall/winter, when my goal will be to get the blocks into a smaller tote. I'll always have leftover blocks/units, so I know I'll never have it down to nothing, but since I'm down to one tote, I'd like to keep it that way. If I can sew up the next  blocks I make as I go, there's hope I can keep the extra blocks to one tote. I will dig the tote out of I need a backing just a bit wider, because a line of orphan blocks is a good way to make that happen. Some of these blocks are orphan blocks, some are enough to make a quilt from, but didn't make the cut this time. 

I finished sewing the last of the quilt blocks from the February push into rows while DH was napping. I have four quilt worth of rows sewn, none of which will be getting borders, and I have one quilt center that needs borders. I'll work on getting all of that pressed later today, so I can work on finishing those quilt tops up over the weekend. I have a quilt top laid out for basting this weekend too, but I did get a quilt basted while I had the grandkids. 

I also have a finish!

I sewed this Spring Twist quilt top in a hotel room in Arkansas. The pastel strips were given to me from an acquaintance, the green accent was leftover quilt wide back, and the border fabric was from my mom's stash. That border fabric is OLD. I know my mom made DD#1 something from it back in 1980's. I really think this was a good project for it to shine. 

I went to start quilting another quilt, and I had a part on my Janome break, so it is now in the shop. When it works, that machine is amazing, but I am a really prolific quilter, and I think maybe it's not the right machine for me. I'm also not a fan of the Janome dealer, they said six weeks for the repair, but I've had them take over three months before. Time to weigh my options and consider a change. I have two Bernina 440's and they quilt beautifully, I just prefer a larger harp when quilting. I could just concentrate on quilting some smaller quilts for a bit, or I could get a different machine, time will tell. I am so blessed to have more than one sewing machine, so even a broken part doesn't completely derail my plans. 

Finish #4

 The fourth quilt of 2026 is done! It's queen sized, and since I don't have an immediate recipient for this one it's hanging on the huge quilt rack in my living room. I've made several quilts from this line of fabric, but this is the end of the line. I may have random bits left in the scrap system, but overall, this line of fabric is out of my stash. 

You can see the quilting better on the back. I used a lavender thread, because I didn't want a dark color on all the white on the front, but it shows up a lot on the back. 

I've got the grandkids this weekend, which will be great! It won't allow much time for quilting, which is fine. I've been really productive this month, taking the time in January to clean up my quilting areas made a big difference. 

For March I really want to dive into the batting scraps, but I need to assemble a couple more quilt tops before my remaining quilt blocks will fit into just one tote. Considering I had quilt blocks everywhere, getting them into one tote is a huge win. I haven't kept count of how many quilt tops I've made in the last month or so, but it's a LOT! I don't like assembling quilt tops in the summer, but I've got a plan for most of the quilt blocks in the tote and when I dig it out again in the fall or winter, I'm hoping to be able to get the blocks into a smaller tote. There are a lot of random units in the tote as well, besides quilt blocks. I have a growing pile of orphan blocks in there too. I may go into the tote if I need a bit of extra width or length for a quilt backing. Making a row or column of orphan blocks can be a fun way to make a backing a little larger. I'm almost out of basted quilts, so a basting spree is on my mind, but I want to piece some batting first, so I use the Frankenbattings during the basting spree instead of storing them. I feel like I'm cleaning up the quilting area the really slow way. Sure, it looks tidier now, but It's not until I have a bit more breathing room that I'll feel like it's really working. 

Slow Going

Things are progressing around here, albeit slowly. I haven't done any FMQ in a week. We've had more going on lately than I was thinking we'd have, and I get off track when I can't keep to a schedule.

I'm still assembling quilt tops from blocks that were already made. I found SO many quilt blocks in the January declutter, that I don't want to stop assembling quilts until I can get all the remaining quilt blocks into ONE tote. I'm not down to one tote yet, so I keep making quilt tops. Most of these quilt tops will be donation quilts, and I'll likely do simple quilting on them to get them done. 

I had set aside the first quarter of the year to work on whatever I wanted to work on. I did the decluttering and cleanup in January, and I thought I'd be working on Frankenbatting in February, but I think that's going to wait until March. I've got several more quilt tops ready for assembly, and I'll spend the rest of February working on that. 

One thing that's been going amazingly well, is my dealing with my scraps. I've been cutting scraps almost every evening, and since I had so many scraps from quilt backings, It's really been well timed  to use scraps in the quilt tops I'm currently making. When scraps are 108" long, even narrower strips go a long ways. 

I used leftover backing fabric for the sashing on a couple more Dancing Nine Patch quilts. 

I've been making a bunch of hourglass blocks to alternate with scrappy nine patches. I love hourglass blocks as alternating blocks because it makes the quilt look on point when it's only straight set. The number of hourglass blocks I get from my scraps determines the size of the quilt. If I have quite a bit of one fabric all in odd sized pieces I don't want to stash, I cut them into either sashing or blocks, then I use what I cut the evening before as my leader/enders while I'm assembling a quilt. By the time I'm done assembling the first quilt, I often have the alternate blocks sewn up for the next quilt. By using backing scraps four my hourglass blocks or sashing, I'm making quilts from 100% scraps, since the blocks I'm setting are scrappy too. 

Some of the sewing I'm doing is also using up cut pieces I found while cleaning up. They may be pieces leftover from a finished project, or cut for a project I never made.

I had a stack of 2.5x6.5 cut pieces with white and cream backgrounds. I had some narrow backing scraps in blue that I could cut into 2.5" strips, and this quilt top was born. 

I've still got way too many 6" scrappy blocks to set, but I wanted a break from working with that size.

I put two quilts on my design wall, one with 12" blocks, one with 8" blocks.

I don't mind these blocks set right next to each other, but I only have 18 blocks. I could set it 4x4 and have two blocks left over, but I don't want leftovers, I want to bust these blocks. I went to the scrap basket, and cut out two more blocks. I hope to get those blocks sewn up tomorrow. 

On the other side of my design wall, I put up some 8" blocks. I have 35 blocks, so I can set it 5x7 with no blocks left. I don't like these set right next to each other, and I don't have enough of any more scraps to use scraps for the sashing. I grabbed a slate blue from stash, and I'll cut both sashing and borders from it. There's enough different prints in there already, that I think just a plain sashing and border will calm it down a bit.

Lately when I make scrap quilts I've been more intentional with my color choices, and I make a lot of two color scrap quilts or stick with a more cohesive esthetic. Most of these blocks are left from my kitchen sink days, and I still love those everything goes quilts. In fact, I've started a new
kitchen sink scrap quilt since my 3.5" squares overflowed their allotted space. I'm making a big checkerboard quilt, alternating dark and light but using all the colors. I'll run out of light colored squares first, but by then I'll be able to fit the 3.5" squares left into their correct bin.

Since I'm mostly working with finished blocks, I'm not having to sew that much to get quilt tops done. I've had more Nana time than sewing time lately. I had grandkids for the weekend, and I'm watching a couple of the grands tonight too. Tomorrow will be a day trip with the grands. The weather has been fantastic lately, and around here, you try to do as many outdoor things as you can before it gets too hot. It's been a very warm February so far, which doesn't bode well for summer. I don't like assembling quilts in summer, but don't mind FMQ in summer. I've got so many quilt tops made I'll be good for a couple summers at least! 

My scrap basket is just over half full, when it was overflowing stacked twice as high as the basket. Basically, I've processed about 70% of what I started with. I've gone through what's still in the basket, and I found leftover masks cut out in 2020. If anything, I found that encouraging, because it let me know I do actually process my scraps, I'd have had a lot more scraps than that over the last six years than this. I think the basket mostly fills up when I have to make the fabric room look presentable in a hurry, like if we are hosting a big event, or we are getting ready to leave town and I don't want to come home to a mess. That's when the scraps get tossed on the basket instead of dealt with. I'm hoping to have the basket empty by the end of March at the latest, but I might be able to do it before then. Most of what's left needs to be pressed before I can cut it, where the stuff on top was less wrinkled. I'm making good progress anyway, and the end is in sight, even if I can't finish this month.