For the love of scraps

It's not a very well kept secret that I love scraps -- I love my scraps, I love friends scraps and sometimes I even buy scraps but here lately the scrap situation is running over and it's time to regain some control of them. 

Not to long ago I realized that I had stopped processing the scraps into charms and this had overly doubled my overflow box. Previously I had been using the accuquilt each time it got full and reloading the other precut scrap bins. It's still a great method but I was finding that I often went into the scrap chaos for fabrics for bee blocks and in building new projects and if I had cut these down into charms they wouldn't be the right size any more. I even went through the charms stock pile and pulled a few fabrics out that I still wanted to use and sent the rest out to a friend that makes scrappy charity quilts -- it was a 10 inch pile of charms. 

So now I was left with the random sizes and larger pieces but I knew these would be more beneficial to me if I could get them in less of a jumbled mess. To me the most logical method seemed to be sorting them by color because that's usually how I look for fabrics in making projects and if I were going to continue pulling fabrics for bee blocks this is how I'd be looking for pieces to use. (stock photo -- I wish mine were this neat and few) 

Once I got them all in piles all over my floor I reused 3 of the paper boxes to help contain them in the mean time. My plan was that in the new year I would start the Rainbow Challenge with So Scrappy and month by month start processing the different piles, not yet sure at that time what my color challenge projects would be but this was at least a good start. (Forgetting that I have a separate area for string scraps at the time. -- OOPS) 

January rolls around and the color is purple -- it's like she knew that was my heaviest color and was testing my commitment to this quest. First off I decided that the paper box method was a no go long term and I wanted pretty cubes to put each color in (knowing that I wasn't done with the acquiring of scraps), first I thought about a store bought method like this one ...

but my husband reminded me that would mean another piece of furniture coming into the room and our cats are very drawn to these fabric bins for some reason and destroy them quickly -- and this could get expensive (ie. less money for fabric). He suggested that i make bins and we could hang them or use the shelves I already had in the room, and it would use some of the scraps -- it's annoying when he's right. My initial plan was to use this pattern and make the large size. 

Of which I did make the first one and it turned out so lovely 

but then realized that when I put it in it's new home this was not the right dimensions -- so i gifted it and went back to the one hour basket that I've made numerous times 

I needed it taller and longer so time for quilt math. I finalized the size at 15 x 8 x 6  it was going into my new TV stand that I had brought into the sewing room after an upgrade to the main TV -- now I'm able to watch / listen to TV /Netflix while I quilt. 

Won't it be great to have a scrappy rainbow behind sliding glass once the year is over ... I may have to work ahead on these. 

another quarterly goal complete