One Woman's Scraps . . .

. . . are another woman's treasure!

So do you save scraps of fabric? Frankly, I'm conflicted. It keeps me up late at night, worrying about the scraps. After all, what if I run out of stash fabric? What a nightmare!

Seriously, though, much of the time, I don't really bother saving "bits" unless they're either 1800s repro fabric ('cause those small quilts are often scrappy and don't require large pieces) or if I'm just in an odd mood--and, yes, I really can hear you muttering to yourself, "But isn't she ALWAYS in an odd mood?" Still, even when I'm in an odd mood, I really only save "planned" scraps. Do you know what I mean? No? Here's what I'm talking about.

When I made Marcie's Trees on the Table toppers, for instance, I planned to save my scraps. I didn't really want to use half square triangles in the borders as Marcie's pattern directed. Instead, I wanted to make the border pieces kind of like the flying geese method where you sew a smaller square onto a rectangle and press back. I know it wastes fabric, but I think it gives me a cleaner look with fewer seams. Of course, the Wasted Fabric Fairy wouldn't let me just toss out those extra pieces I cut away. Oh no! The Wasted Fabric Fairy insists I sew a second seam line and trim between the stitched lines so I end up with half square triangles from the "scraps."

Here's what I ended up with from the "Trees" projects:

Usually those little half square triangles pile up somewhere in the Sweat Shop for awhile until I decide to watch some interesting show on TV. Just so I don't feel like I'm a useless slug, wasting time doing nothing, I'll grab my pieces and trim them up to a usable size. Most of the time, I can trim them to 1-3/4".

Here are a few more triangle scraps from the latest Hometown Christmas section:

For a long time, I collected these half square triangles until I had a small hatbox full of them--mostly from Thimbleberries fabrics because I had made several quilts using flying geese. Finally I decided I probably ought to figure out what I could do with them.

Did you ever have one of those boards with felt shapes when you were a kid? I used to love to rearrange the colored squares and triangles and circles--I could do that all day long! Anyway, playing around with half square triangles on a design wall is a lot like that--tons of fun!

Here's a photo of the quilt top I made--it still needs borders. I had an idea for my borders when I first got this far, but now I think I might donate this to the Sutter Breast Cancer Quilt Auction that I mentioned a few weeks ago. If I do that, I'll probably come up with another plan for the borders--maybe some applique. In any event, there are too many other projects to work on before Christmas, so I have until the first of the year to decide.

So, do you save your scraps? If so, what have you done with them? I'd love to hear your story!