Organizing

When bolts of fabric come in to Whimsy Cottage, the quilt shop I work in, we slice off an inch or two of fabric from the bolt.  This approximately 2" x 42" strip has a number of purposes:

• The bolt is often crooked and cutting off this strip straightens the end up
• We place the strip in the bolt to allow us to cut off a small piece if a customer needs a sample to compare to things at home
• We also cut a 1" piece of the strip & glue it to a piece of paper so we know what has come in recently 
• And finally when a bolt is finished we can use this piece to find the fat quarters that are left and mark them down

Once this strip of fabric has served it's purpose it goes into a bin and one of us takes them home.  I've been collecting the strips for about a year or so and have been anxious to make some String quilts from them.  The quilt(s) will be truly scrappy and I plan to make them a bit wonky as well.  But before I can use them I feel the need to organize them.  I asked my youngest to put together some bins for me using some grids we've had laying around for sometime.

I only had enough grids to make 6 bins but they have helped immensely.

I put all of the oranges, reds and pinks together and ended up putting the browns with the yellows.

Of course Mister Eko had to help out.  He tried out each bin.

As soon as I started sorting the strips he decided to plant himself in the purple bin and enjoyed having strips thrown all over him.

Now that the strips are sorted I am very excited to start a project with them but I need to finish a few things first.  Having this project on the horizon will help me get the other projects done!