02 September, 2014

Gave Away My Scraps


This summer was all about cleaning up, purging, and moving on for me. I'm almost done a massive garage clean out where only garage related items are staying in there. Slowly but surely we are emptying the house of frivolous crap. And one day last week the need to empty my sewing room hit.

I store all my scraps on the shelves of my cutting table. My storage bins were kind of bursting, my glass jars were unable to keep their lids on, and the floor was littered with fabric. It was kind of insane. An honest craft room shot was required, but when the mood hit me to clean I couldn't even be bothered to stop and go upstairs to get my camera!

All of my colour sorted scraps got put in bags and stuffed into this box. And another bag. I had intended to list scrap bundles for sale, but decided I didn't even want to go through that. Not knowing how many local followers I have on Instagram I posted a pic there, with the words FREE TO A GOOD HOME. The only caveat was that the new owner had to pick them up from me. Within minutes I had a text from a friend who is a preschool teacher and a local quilter who just joined our modern quilt guild. Two days later all the scraps were out of my house.



Some of the fabrics there had been used many, many times. Some of the fabrics were at least a decade old. There were large pieces and small, in the entire rainbow of colours. For the record, that is a box that would fit 30 of my books in it and those are the Large size Ziploc bags.

It's just that I was kind of done with them. I kept seeing the same fabrics when I went in the bins to look for a bit of orange or grey. To be honest, they didn't get me excited anymore. And if I don't want to use my scraps then something is seriously wrong. I so needed a fresh slate. And by giving them away I was able to give someone else new inspiration and even some kids a host of possibilities. And the fabric has new life in someone else's hands. Have fun @quiltcrazy!

Now to get down to the business of creating new scraps.

8 comments:

Brenda said...

That was/is one special gift for someone who is new to this quilting game!!! And when you have scraps, you lean how valuable they are. That is such a wonderful thing to give to someone, the gift of fun and magic - all from scraps of material!!!

Toni Macomb said...

I've given scraps to school teachers before and they love them. I keep picturing all the fabric collages that can be made from them. Made by someone other than myself! I have moved to a much smaller home and am now thinking of freeing myself of scraps again. Currently I am paying storage, in a heated unit, to store flimsys, scraps and fabric...and other things, but mainly fabric. I could be spending that monthly fee on new fabric!

Lynda Halliger Otvos (Lynda M O) said...

That's how I got started. A friend of a friend was moving into a different art form and sent bags of scraps to me. I fell in love with these old fabrics and have no idea who designed them or when. It has been a blessing to be able to acquire free fabric and then turn it into free give away gift quilts.

You rock, Cheryl.

Suzanne said...

Kudos to you for passing along your scraps and for the overall house purge.

Kathy@KayakQuilting said...

Bravo to you for doing the house purge! We have made a decision to downsize and simplify and are looking at a monstrous task to rid ourselves of stuff. I just have away a bundle of themed fabrics and it felt great to put them in the hands of someone who really, really appreciated these scraps.

Lea said...

Congratulations on your clean up, purge and sharing the scrappy wealth. I love working with scraps. Friends have sent me their unloved scraps and larger pieces. It is always fun to work with other quilter's fabrics. When we moved a couple years ago I purged my stash of ALL unloved fabric. It went to a guild and they used the fabric for quilts for children, pillow cases for children and quilts for other causes.

Karen said...

Congratulations, Cheryl! Not just for passing all those scraps along to a new life, but also for giving yourself breathing room for all the inspiration and quilts that are yet to come!

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