Drowning in scraps

 Scrappy quilts are the most common kind I make, and I do love them.  Anyone who has read my blog very long knows that I use a lot of white-on-white, neutral prints, or cream backgrounds for the scrappy blocks I make.  Those are so easy to mix into a scrappy quilt.

What happens to those neutral background types of scraps?  Well, they go into the beige canvas cube - which is/was definitely overflowing.  It needed attention desperately.

Time to sort and cut - and ultimately USE some of this.  What a mess when I dumped it all out on the sewing room floor!  But there were some interesting finds in there. 

Several strip sets - all folded neatly together.  These were all leftover sashing strips from old projects, and they may get used for that purpose in some new project. The cute dog bone print was something I had totally forgotten about.  Those 1.5" white strips were also a surprise find, and I'm not even sure what they were originally from.  None of these went back into the bin. 

From a variety of the neutral scraps I've cut about 60 of the 2.5" x 4.5" rectangles to use in future Potato Chip blocks.  These did NOT go back into the bin either, but they did go into the Potato Chip block bin.

I sorted out a LOT of white-on-white pieces big enough to use in the paper pieced Morning Glory blocks. There may be an aqua Morning Glory block on the horizon.  There were also several interesting print pieces that were too big to stay in with these scraps and those were cut into useful sizes - 2.5" and 3.5" squares, and 5" charms for example. Bicycles, fishing lures, dots, and leaves . . .

I used some of those charm squares in 4 new scrappy Windmill blocks.  

Most of the really narrow strips and strings went into a gallon zipper bag to use in future string blocks. And the rest went back into that scrap bin - which is quite full, but no longer overflowing thankfully.  And yes - I even threw away some scraps.  That felt so good!!

Maybe the big blue/aqua/purple bin will be next.