The Empty Box

If you follow my blog you know I have been trying to empty a large USPS flat rate box of 4 inch width strips and squares mostly received from others that accumulated over the years. 

Well, I'm glad to say that now the box is empty. 

I put a little baggie of novelty strips in a box of other novelty scraps. 

With anything less than a four inch square I made coin strips about 4 x 20-24 inches. I ended up with 35 strips and put those in a box with other coin strips of varying widths. Someday I will empty that box and make a coin quilt or quilts. 

And now I am left with a bin of mostly 4 inch squares. The upper right stack is sets of two. The lower right are all browns and creams and they lower left is anything else. The stack on the upper left are all 4 inch width strips that are width of fabric (WOF). 

The box is empty. 

This is what came out of it.

1. Yankee Puzzle Top

2. Yankee Puzzle #2 block set of 48 blocks

3. Blue/Orange Four Patch Top (also added orange solid)

4. Basket Weave (also added orange solid)

5. Four Patch and Two Rails (brown, orange, yellow)

6. 29 Wonky Stars (for an ongoing Wonky Star project)

7. Squares on the Diagonal 

8. Quirky pink, blue, purple

9. Irish Chain (black and gray)

10.  Hollow Nine

Now, what's in this box of 3.5 inch width strips and squares? 

And sew on...

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

 

Singing The Blues - Verse II

Shoofly

10.5 inch finished blocks

I now have 23 blocks out of a target of 35 or 48 depending upon how many blocks I get out of a box of 4 inch width scraps.

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) color for February is blue. I have a lot of  blue scraps to use this month. I actually use scraps to make my RSC blocks and usually have blocks going for any width size scrap I come across. I have a few folks who share their scraps with me and when I receive them I usually sort them by width size if smaller scraps that are less than a fat quarter. If larger than a fat quarter they are sorted by color and put with yardage of same color.   This week I worked mostly with scraps in a box of 4 inch width scraps. 

Going where the scraps take me!

For the Shoofly blocks I pulled out any blue strips and then found a scrap in the box of another color.  If the blue scrap was long enough it became a Shoofly background otherwise it made up the rest of the block. 

Broken Dishes

7 inches finished

I now have 39 blocks.  I don't have any goal in mind. I'll just wait until I've made all the blocks I can from the scraps in the 4 inch width box and when the box is empty I'll decide how to use the blocks. 

Hollow Nine Patch

10.5 inch finished

No goal for blocks yet. I'll wait until 4 inch width scrap box is empty and go from there. 

I cut a lot of scraps into the 4 inch squares and this baggie will go into my bin of different sized squares. Use will be determined later. This week I'm just trying to empty the box of 4 inch scraps and not put any blues or pinks back in the box. 

Most of the scraps in the 4 inch width box were given to me by several different folks last year. I noticed there was a little pile of rectangles 4 x 6.5 inches so I set those aside. Then later before I cut the scraps into squares I cut what I could into 4 x 6.5 rectangles to add to the pile. Now those will get put into the bin full of baggies of different sized rectangles. 

I was already saving rectangles 2 x 4 inches so cut any remaining scraps into 2 x 4s if I could. They will be added to the baggie of that size in my rectangles bin. 

For now I'm just scrap processing bits and pieces - not sure what I will do with any rectangles of any size  at this point but accumulate them until baggies are full. 

And any 4 inch wide bits less than 2 inches and greater than about 3/4 inch gets sewn into a strip. And into the box of strips they go. Probably in the future they will become some sort of Coins quilt. But you never know!

And sew on...

RSC ScrapHappy Saturday

 

In The Pink Four Inch Width Scraps

Shoofly and Hollow Nine

10.5 inch finished

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) color for January is pink. 

This morning I whipped up blocks from 4 inch width pink scraps. 

The longer scraps plus one other color get made into the Shoofly blocks. 

4 inch squares get made into Hollow Nine Patch blocks with white centers. 

Broken Dishes

7 inch blocks

Shorter pieces get made into Broken Dish blocks. 

Any other 4 inch pink scraps will get cut into squares or rectangles or made into strips. I won't put them back into the 4 inch width scrap box. 

Large flat rate postage box of 4 inch width scraps I hope to empty this year. 

Years ago I cleaned out all but the 2 inch width scrap boxes and bins and then had a block going for almost every size scrap so made blocks as scraps were made or received. This year I got a little behind on processing scraps and have a box for almost every width of scrap. I hope to empty them this year making blocks in the RSC color of the month.  The last couple of RSC years I've been making blocks from scrap chunks but now I'm back to using "precuts" which aren't really precuts unless you consider that most were cut by someone other than me - most have been given to me over the past year by many different folks.  

And I try to make those scraps into comfort quilts. My goal is "Strive for 45 in 2025". My goal last year was "44 in '24" and I'm happy to say I exceeded that goal!

RSC ScrapHappy Saturday

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CELEBRATE! (my word of the year)

Dec. 27 - Box of orphan blocks from Cherie!