That is going to be beautiful! and cool! I love brights with natural linen! Also, your glamorous assistant is the best kind of help 
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Another super colourful, beautiful heart creation! Ooh, I am getting ideas… it is nearly February after all… 
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I made a ton of pattern weights, that I find very useful. My neighbor liked mine so much she threatened to steel them. I used old lentils for filler.
The 2nd picture is my basket of scraps. I need to purge and organize it.
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Pattern weights are always a nice thing and people want them once they see them!
Keep on using up those scraps!
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@jemimah those bookmarks look fabulous all together.
@gozer that will be amazing when done. I love the fabrics
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I’ve found a great scrap project! I have loads of really small scraps and I just remembered I have the Farmer’s Wife 1930s quilt book. The blocks in that book are really detailed and small (finished size 6x6 inch). I’ve tried machine sewing some but I’m not precise enough to pull that off and the book ended up on the shelf. I’m going to try handsewing them some of them. I will decide later what I’ll do with the blocks, but I already have some ideas (sampler book, potholders)
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Wow, that sounds like a really amazing (and kind of time consuming) project. I didn’t realize patchwork blocks of the past were so much smaller than what we generally make now - but that does make sense given that they’re using scraps rather than yardage.
Here’s my latest scrappy creation - I only have a palm sized piece of the fabric left, so I’m counting that as a win!
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Some of those blocks have 20 or more pieces! 
I think you are right that that’s because they were usually made from scraps. The average woman in the 19th century would probably think we’re insane for buying yards of good expensive fabric just to cut them up again!
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I learned to quilt from my great grandmother…she would sit on the front porch with a basket of all sorts of cloth, mostly from dresses, aprons and shirts she made for my great grandpa and all of the relatives…she could pick up a patch and tell you when she made it and what it was…“Uncle Dan’s Sunday shirt”, “Aunt Flora’s biscuit making apron”…I cut out so many hexies those summers out of all those scraps…and I mean tiny hexies, like half an inch or so…
Yeah…we buy fabrics and cut them up and put them back together…quilters are a bit insane…
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My grandmother and her best friend decided to make quilts the summer they were eleven; the friend supplied the print fabrics & used feedsack prints, and my grandmother’s grandmother complained that they’d gotten stuck with buying the solid colors, which were more expensive. It was all newly cut up materials, though.
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@AIMR - I inherited a bunch of scraps from my great-aunt when she passed away last year, and she was also the sort of person who saved every little scrap from clothes and items she’d made for people. I wish I could have had a chance to go through her scrap-bag with her to get the stories behind a lot of these sweet prints. I’ve found a few pieces where there are whole children’s dresses stuffed in there that are beyond repair but never got fully disassembled. I want to make some things for her daughter out of those but I haven’t figured out what yet.
@thanate - that’s kind of funny given that it’s the opposite now for the cost of prints vs. solids.
And some more stashbusting with itty-bitty boxy pouches:
From left to right we have something from Aunt Gloria’s stash, a pretty yellow floral from another aunt’s stash, and a blue print that I picked up years ago, but can’t remember where or why I bought it. I’m really sad to see the last of the yellow go. I didn’t think much of it when it was a half yard cut, but it made the sweetest doll dresses [pic another doll collector took of the dress I made for her].
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I have a confession. I have made so many projects over the years and have just stuffed the “unusable” scraps in a big box. The ones of a good size are in a sort of organized bag, but the big box… shudder. Lately, my etsy shop has consisted of making costumes for kids and that has me ending up with a TON of yellow (Jane from Tarzan). Finally - FINALLY! - I’m doing something about it. I’ve just taken everything and cut them into about 10" or longer strips and I am braiding them. For days. I’m braiding them and turning them into rag rugs. I’ll post a pic when done. Or maybe a progress shot when I’m not ashamed of the huge pile of strips overtaking my cutting table…
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I think it was a brief aberration because of the feed sack thing.
(For those not familiar, the people making large bags for grain/animal feed/etc in the 1930s noticed that people were using the bags to make dresses & started printing them in flowery prints. There was a reproduction line of quilting patterns that came out ~15 years ago.)
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I think all of us feel a twinge of guilt for having scraps and not doing anything with them…but we also feel bad about just getting rid of them.
I think we have to find a balance where we are not just making stuff that will never get used or enjoyed just because…I had a whole bunch of children’s prints that I knew I would not enjoy making something…
I also finally threw away most of the scraps I had from making clothing and costumes with non-cotton fabrics…I try to think how I am going to be able to use scraps of metallic fabric or velvet and really, except for artsy projects, I am not using them to make anything else…
Glad you found a use for your yellow fabrics and can’t wait to see what you have done…
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I just came across this pattern
https://nl.pinterest.com/pin/659073726705164186/
which would be great for slightly bigger scraps!
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I’ve made lots of tote bags with them. I’d like to make a wall hanging as well. I keep trying to come up with a quicker way to sew them up and utilize my machine. So much hand sewing gets tiresome for me.
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I did a load of scrap busting today. Sorted into lights mediums and darks, I can easily pair the lights and darks, but the mediums are less easy. So I cut them into strips. It’s the middle pile on the picture.
It doesn’t look like a lot, but it took ages. All the 2.5" strips are set aside, all the rest random width strips became these. They are either 5"sq or 6" I can’t remember which.
I swear the scraps were breeding anytime I left the room.
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This looks so cool already!
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What is that!?! I LOVE it! Oh my gosh woman, wow!
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That looks amazing!!
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