Treadlestitches: Taming Down the Stash with Bonnie and Marie

Saturday, June 26, 2021

Taming Down the Stash with Bonnie and Marie

Welcome to Treadlestitches! And welcome to the last purple week for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I have loved making quilt blocks with all the wonderful shades of purple.

Regular readers of Treadlestitches will know I babysit three of my grandchildren while their parents work.

Running after this adorable bucket head and his brothers keeps me pretty busy. So I when I get time to quilt, I need to be as efficient as possible.

My favorite projects are charity quilts for children, and I love to buy the fabrics for these quilts at rummage sales, flea markets, etc. Processing these fabrics into my stash takes more effort than if I had just bought them at the quilt store, but it's worth it for the variety and the price.

Thank goodness for people like Bonnie Hunter (who pioneered the scrap user's system) and Marie Kondo, author of The Magic of Tidying Up. Today I'm going to show you how I process a big haul, like the one I wrote about last week.

First, I wash all the larger pieces. I'm removing sizing, if the fabric was never washed before. Some fabric softeners make me sneeze, and there are occasionally pieces that smell like cigarette smoke or that unmistakable basement odor, so everything except small scraps gets run through the washing machine. I use a fragrance-free detergent.

Then I fold the fabric, more or less following the Marie Kondo method (called Konmari) that I learned about in this video, from Stephanie Soebbing of Quilt Addicts Anonymous.

In the photo above, the fat quarters are on the left, then half yards, then one yard pieces, then multiple yards. All of these measurements are approximate.

Once the fabrics are washed and folded, they get filed into bins. These bins hold the fat quarters. They are arranged by color. Right now I have a big bunch of multicolor fabrics that I'm not sure what to do with. (Any ideas?)

These are the half yard baskets, similar to the ones in the video. You can tell at a glance I need more red and more purple.

The one yard pieces are in bigger bins. They're very good for borders on children's quilts.

The biggest pieces, more than 1 yard each, go in these soft-sided bins on the closet shelf. They're great for backing, but also for borders or binding. After recent shopping trips, I'm stocked up here.

Now, what about the scraps?

I divide the scraps into big scraps (on the right) and small scraps (on the left). Big scraps are at least 6 in. wide, and could be cut into a variety of sizes, so I leave them to cut when I need them. Small scraps are less than 6 in. wide. (In the center are two packs of Halloween charm squares, which I just filed in the charm square box.)

Big scraps are rubber banded by color and put in this big basket. Then when it's purple month, I grab out that bunch and cut what I need. Also, if I use most of a fat quarter and only have a big scrap left, it goes here.

The little scraps are cut into strips or squares and rectangles, depending on the size of the scrap or any projects I'm cutting for. I modified Bonnie Hunter's excellent scrap users system to suit how I sew. The sizes I cut are (from left to right), 5 in., 4.5 in., 3.5 in., 2.5 in., 2 in., and 1.5 in. I have drawers or small bins for each of the strip sizes, and boxes for each size square.

When I trim the scraps, I'm usually cutting them to the largest size I can. If however I think I would use two 2.5 in. strips rather than a 5 in. strip, then that's what I cut. I'm always thinking about what I'm planning to make and what I already have.

Strips and squares etc. are stored in the closet.

When I'm cutting for a scrap quilt, I start with scrap user's system, then go to the big scraps, then to fat quarters, and so on.

The bins are stored on a book shelf, in a dark corner of the sewing room, where they are not exposed to sunlight.

It's taken me a while to change to this system, and I find that I really like it. I can see what I have (and what I lack), and seeing the bright colors is inspiring, even on a rainy day.