Are you up for a scrap challenge?

For the past week, I have been testing something out to see if I wanted to share the challenge with you — I have been spending 5-10 minutes each day cutting scraps into different sizes. 

The Challenge

Let's do it together. Five to 10 minutes every day. 

At this rate, it is going to take me the entire year to make it through all of my scraps but I am making progress.

The Rules

Don't

The important thing is that I don't want to burn out so I am not letting myself spend more than 10 minutes cutting scraps. I am also not letting myself give up if I miss a day (or five).

Every few months, I decide that I am going to cut all of my scraps down into usable shapes and I am always so glad that I spent the time doing it, but it is incredibly time intensive. I usually cut down to useful sizes (like 2.5" or 3.5" squares) without a definite project in mind.

Do

This time, I have some tentative game plans for some quilts that I want to make in the next few months. Here are two existing patterns that I am planning to make:

• The Iris Quilt, potentially a rainbow scrap quilt. I have made a scrappy version of this quilt before but I used quite a bit of black and primary colors. I want to go brighter this time. If I have the scraps available in my stash, I am going to try go for a rainbow quilt but I'm not sure if that is going to work out.

• The Freya Quilt. I have made a scrappy version of this quilt as well and I LOVE it for scraps because it uses up so many, including some smaller pieces. This time I am thinking I will use dark scraps for the background fabrics and low volume scraps for the feature fabrics. 

Here are the other shapes I am cutting. I will add a link if I have done a prior post about using that particular shape in patterns. Some of these are going to be for new patterns so you will have to wait for more info on those!

• 2.5" squares
• 2.5" strips - I leave some of these strips long for flexibility in future projects
• 3" squares
• 3.5" squares
• 4" squares
• 4.5" squares
• 5" squares
• 7" squares

If you are new to working with scraps or want more background info, here are some posts that you will help you along.

• What is a scrap?
• My Scrap Rules
• Creating a Successful Rainbow Scrap Quilt
• My Top 10 Favorite Scrap Projects
• Picking a Backing Fabric for Your Scrap Quilt
• How to Make Your Scrap Quilt Look Good
• How to Make (Just About!) Any Quilt a Scrap Quilt

The Plan

This is meant to be very low stress and to help you get your scraps in order if yours are as bad as mine. I will be taking before/after photos of my scraps and keep you updated on the progress. I currently have 4 bins full plus 2 scrap piles on my sewing room floor so things are pretty dire here.

My plan is to make one blog post per week that is scrap-related and that will help you along the way. If you have any specific questions or posts you would like to see, let me know in the comments!

Since this is something I will be working on every day, I will be sharing progress in my feed and my stories on Instagram and will definitely be sharing tips and info there too so make sure you are following along @kitchentablequilting.