Sorting Scraps

I had small scraps of fabric stored in several messy containers around my sewing room. Every time I searched through them looking for particular colours, they got more messy and tangled and frayed. When I decided to join in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this year, I quickly realised that sorting the scraps by colour was going to make life a lot easier. So that's what I've been doing.

Here's an "in progress" shot of a bunch of scraps sorted into piles.

Working with one colour at a time, I press the pieces and trim off fraying threads. I also take the opportunity to throw out anything that is too small for the scrappy hearts I'm making, or any fabric I really don't like and will never use. Then I pop the neat pieces in zip-lock bags:

My intention is to store the bags in the tubs that hold my larger fabric pieces. Then when I generate more small off-cuts, I can pop them in the relevant bag straight away. 

You might notice a bag of red scraps in the previous photo. I thought I had used up all the red making hearts last month, but it turns out I had more red bits and pieces than I thought I had. So with some of the larger pieces I started another rainbow scrap project:

The Scrappy Sprouts pattern instructions I'm following came from here: Traceyjay Quilts Scrappy Sprouts. However I have reduced the size of the squares to fit the sizes of scraps I have. Mine will end up about 75% of the original size. I haven't decided yet what thickness the centre stalk will be.

Making these two red leaves alerted me to a pressing problem. If you press the seams in alternate directions for each row, they are not going to nest when you join the leaves one above the other. So I think in future I will make the top row from random width background pieces, so the seams are not in line with the leaf seams.