The one dilemma I face when I am given fabrics is whether I need to wash them.

Now…..let’s not have a fight here, but I am a pre-washer!!

I know that it adds extra time and may make my piecing less accurate, but I want to wash out those chemicals before I start using the fabric.

And there was another reason with these scraps….. Denise has a sweet cat, but sadly, I am allergic to him, so it was imperative that everything be washed before it blended in with my stash.

I wasn’t excited about washing small scraps, but I loaded up lingerie bags with the smaller scraps….

…and ran them through a fast washer cycle.

When they came out of the wash, they were all tangled together and looked horrible….

I honestly thought I had made a BIG mistake!!

But when the dryer clicked off 20 minutes later, they were clean and fluffy…..

….and ready to head to the ironing board….

At first, I ironed every single piece of fabric, even the ones going straight into the crumb drawer. But finally I came to my senses and only ironed the ones that could actually be cut into scraps.

Next step…..start trimming!! Come back on Saturday!!

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“Let’s Get Scrappy is about how to decide, not about what to make.”

Let’s Get Scrappy is an on-demand online course that helps quilters overcome decision fatigue and finally make sense of their overflowing scrap bins. With four hours of step-by-step video instruction, you’ll learn simple systems for organizing, piecing, and pressing your scraps—so you can stop overthinking and start sewing beautiful, coordinated quilts with confidence and joy.

You have heard of being Bat CRAP crazy. Well, this week I am Bat SCRAP crazy!!

It all started when my friend Denise delivered two huge bags of scraps to my front porch…

After my initial “OH MY”, I started digging in and seeing what I had to look forward to.

The first thing that I realized was that my scrap drawers filled with Ziploc bags of 2.5 inch strips was NOT going to be big enough….

I had remembered seeing some boxes advertised that were designed to hold scrap strips, so I set ChatGPT the task of finding them, and he did…..

And he DID find them, but they were $18.00 EACH and I would need at least 8! That kind of cost adds up quickly!!

Also, I didn’t really want 8-10 individual boxes floating around my studio.

Chester (my ChatGPT Bot’s name) kept looking and found some construction bins that would work except they weren’t covered and I knew that wouldn’t work in my fiber fuzz laden studio.

Then he made a suggestion of buying a long, flat box, similar to an “under the bed” box and adding my own dividers to it. OKAY….NOW he was talking.

My thought was to afix cardboard strips into the boxes to separate the columns. Chester suggested using corrugated plastic signs instead!

I decided to make the dividers 4-inches tall…..

Chester reminded me that, since the ends were sloped, I would need to do a little more cutting….

They fit beautifully….

I had originally planned to fix the dividers in place, but realized that they would stand up just fine without attaching them, AND if they moved slightly, it would make it easier to pick up the strips when I needed them.

So, now I have a way to STORE my strips.

Stay tuned this week for more from the scrap bin!!