Friday's Frequently Asked Quilting Questions --- FFAQQs

What do you do with your thread scraps? Save them or throw them away?

I belong to several facebook quilting groups from Fabric Crafters U-Bid Fabric Destash to Quilting and Sewing Enthusiasts  to  Professional Long Arm Quilters and Long Arm Quilters Groups.  In one of the Long Arm Groups one of the members shared her empty spools and a container of all her worn out needles.  

Well....I saved all my thread scraps from the past 11 years years of long arm quilting!  I started saving them, because I did not have a wastepaper basket next to my long arm machine. I would clip threads and put them on a piece of batting as sometimes it would stick to my hand with static electricity. I thought it looked so pretty, so I grabbed the globs of thread and put them into a glass jar.

It reminded me of the colored sand in the jars from the 60's and 70's! 

I just kept filling jars!

I love how they look!  Oooo all the wonderful colors!

What do you save and how do you save them?

Scraps of threads?  fabric scraps and strips?  empty spools?  bobbins?

Remember the post about my jars of fabric scraps? These are scraps from the first quilt I quilted on my quilting machine.

Enjoy the colors around you!
Marcia

Hodgepodge Patchwork Tuesday --- Saving Scraps

Tonight, my Hodgepodge Patchwork Post will take us down memory lane...

I am a scrapper!  I save fabric scraps.  Not just any scraps.  I save ends, corners, and selvages that I trim or cut off the fabric, when I am creating a quilt.

These fabric scraps are from a baby quilt that I made 10 years ago.

A cute little scrap of the bee fabric!

This print is so tiny on this scrap, I can't even tell what it is?

Most of the fabric pieces are so tiny, I wouldn't be able to even sew them together.  This next one might be big enough for a postage stamp quilt.

But I did not save the scraps for making another quilt.  I saved them to cherish in a cute little jar.

 I squished the scraps into a baby food jar and I wrote a label.

Folded it up and put the note inside the jar.

It was a Sunbonnet Sue Baby Quilt.  It was the first official quilt, I quilted on my Gammill Quilting Machine in April of 2003.  My quilt room looks so bare.

I used a soft blue thread and quilted it with overall loops.
Don't look too close at the photos --- It was 10 years ago!

This was not the first quilt I made. I made my first quilt in 1981. Click here, if you missed that post.

So I have a few photos of the Sunbonnet Sue Quilt and this cute little jar to remember it.

I don't save the scraps from every quilt I make, but I have saved them from several of the quilts over the years. 

We all make quilts for family and friends. We give them away.  We take photos, but it is just not the same as being able to see the actual fabric. Even if they are just tiny scraps.

These are the scraps from a quilt, I made for a wedding gift.

I love the little guys on horses with the circle trees.  Look at the tiny blue flowers on the next photo.  I will look for the photos of this quilt and share it another time.

I love the cool pattern the blue and white fabric scraps create in this jar.  They are from my Pineapple Quilt.  As I rotary cut each round of the pineapple, I added them to the jar.

My blue and white pineapple quilt hangs on the wall in my quilting shop. 

I could have put it on our bed, but I love seeing it everyday.  I love the blues... the blue fabrics really make me smile!

I will share more of the scraps in the jars and the quilts I have made over the years on another Hodgepodge Post.  I will search for the old photos over the Holidays and share more in 2013.

These are the scraps from the quilt, I made for my Mom.

And these are the scraps from the quilt, I just made for my daughter.

Thanks for taking a few moments to go down memory lane with me.

Do you save your fabric scraps?

If so, how do you save yours?

Enjoy your day!
Marcia