I gathered up the fabrics in question, Grand Illusion leftovers on the left, scooter scrub top scraps on the right.
After going through the leftover Grand Illusion fabrics, I decided these could go on the small minibolts, and not be cut up. Some of the silvery grays weren't that large, but I have a silver/purple wedding quilt to make soon, so I saved them. My basic rule of thumb is I'll keep it whole if it's over 12", cut into strips if it's less. A six inch piece can yield one each of a 1.5, 2, and 2.5 inch strip. If it's 9.5 inches you can snag a 3.5" strip too. I'm usually good about dealing with quilt leftovers, and my strips drawers are pretty full to prove it. It's garment scraps that trip me up.
I thought a lot about how I let that many scraps build up, and I decided it was bound to happen. For a few years, I was making scrub tops for DH's co-workers. I was still homeschooling at the time, and had several kids still living at home. Dealing with scraps just wasn't a priority, because there wasnt any time to do it.
Why didn't I deal with it sooner? Because I was enjoying getting to play with quilting fabrics instead of novelty fabrics. I had tried tackling the scrub scraps before, I just never got through them and finished, so they kept adding up.
I've decided I'm OK with how I got in the mess, and I'm very happy I'm done dealing with the mess. I had a lot of random thoughts while spending a month cutting scraps. Here are a few.
1) Yes, I have enough selvages to make a selvage quilt now, or maybe five selvage quilts!
2) Speaking of selvages, someone should make a paper doll style selvage quilt just from the parts of selvages that say 'not intended for children's sleepwear'. Has that been done already?
3) Getting out of the quilt cave can be a good thing. My sewing room was unusable for a while. I was cutting scraps while sitting at the kitchen table. Being in the main living area all the time reminded me of other things that needed to be done. I reorganized a lot of the kitchen in the past month, cooked more, cleaned more. I haven't sewn a stitch in a month, but I got a lot more done than just cutting scraps.
4) Why is rust so hard to put in a color family? Is it a brown, an orange, or maybe even red???
5) Sometimes the predominant color in a fabric is not the background color. I have some Universal Studio monster fabric with a blue background. If you step away about six feet, it absolutely reads as a black, not the slate blue background.
6) With so many scraps, do I feel guilty about having so much other fabric? Nope. I need those tone on tones and other stuff to make these scraps work.
7) With all the yardage I have, should I bother spending the time dealing with these scraps? Absolutely, because variety is what makes quilts interesting to me.
Those are a few of the things I've thought about in my month of scrap cutting. I'm really content right now. I took the time to deal with the scraps that were weighing me down. I'm excited about getting back to sewing and using them. Probably the most important thing is I think I'm feeling a little more balanced. By spending so much time in the main part of the house, I got a fresh perspective on things. That's a good thing!
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