One thing that I didn’t fully expect when I began sewing last year was the sheer number of scraps that accrue when you sew things together and then cut them apart.
It happened slowly at first — little strips here and there when I was working on my first quilt last winter, attempting to square things off — and then picked up steam once I began sewing garments in the spring. The clothes I sewed left larger, more easily salvageable chunks of fabric in their wake, but this too was waste I didn’t expect.
The larger scraps went into two plastic tubs that live in the basement, but when it came to the smaller bits I was at a loss. I couldn’t bear to throw them away, so instead they filled a quart sized baggy, and then a gallon one, and so on, until a plastic bag full of random weird offcuts was sitting in the dining room table next to my desk, threatening to spill over at any moment.1
There are entire corners of the internet dedicated to solving the problem of “scrap management” and offering solutions such as making a “crumb quilt” out of all the tiny little bits.2 Last weekend I finally got around to the project that would at least temporarily alleviate my scrap problem, but when I first emptied the scrap bag all I felt was overwhelm. How in the world would other people make something of this?
This is what the inside of my brain feels like sometimes. With fabric but with most physical things that require organization, I struggle with both needing to see it all at once, and also wanting it all to be put away. This leads to hours-long sewing sessions where every bit of fabric in the house is scattered across the dining room floor, only to be chaotically smushed back into the plastic bins once I finally call it a night.3
I’m going to say it: it’s not really working.
Organization has always been a challenge for me. How many academic years did I start with all the color-coordinated pens, the planners, the trapper keepers and good intentions, only to end up with wrinkled handouts and missing assignments by October?4 5
When I try to file papers or organize other ephemera, I lose mental purchase on things once they’re out of sight, as if the object itself ceases to exist. The flip side isn’t much better: because I like to have things in my field of vision, piles accumulate easily, completely illegible to me as mess.
But this jumbled scrap bag is also what I think the beginning of January felt like for a lot of people, this year. Maybe it’s always this way? But with the cold, the climate, the genocide, the pandemic, that perpetually chased feeling, I came back to work after the holidays feeling mushy brained and mentally exhausted, unable to put things in order.
I expected to come out of the holidays feeling rested, and instead I was like, what are we to do with all of this. How can we hold on to all of these shaggy scraps and make something of it?
What I made
But I have been sewing a couple of things. My oldest friend in the entire world is having a baby any day now, and as a little surprise I made this little quilt (all with fabric from my stash, no new fabric was purchased for the making of this quilt!). I wanted to practice some strip piecing in an orderly (read, non-improv) fashion and so I used this free pattern for the Primavera Block from Quiltd Studios.
I made four of those blocks and just kind of sashed them together and I think it’s very cute! It’s currently tucked on a glider in a nursery in San Luis Obispo awaiting its person.
I was really taken by this Closet Core scrap ottoman and took it as inspiration to make Kitty a new pouf for her corner of the couch. This was a classic case of rushing-through-things-and-making-them-worse when it comes to the quilting itself, which warped a wonky log cabin that would have looked quite nice.6 But Kitty thinks it’s cosy enough.
I quilted the top to Insul-brite so it’s a self-warming bed for her, and it’s FULL OF SCRAPS. All the scraps in the scrap bag that I didn’t want to mess with are now sewn into the pouf. The scrap bag is empty, at least for now.
Reading/Watching/Listening
Rapid fire
The Changeling by Victor LaValle
Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind by Molly McGee
Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
Alice Wong on the #PodSaveJon thing « if you totally missed Jon Favreau from the Pod Save bros belittling and dismissing disabled folks who are speaking out about the dangers of covid and long covid, this is a good overview. I don’t really listen to those podcasts anymore these days — Lovett or Leave it was my only holdout — but this plus a few instances of guests on the podcast making fun of masked audience members makes me think enough is enough.
We finally watched Aftersun and it was devastating but so good, Paul Mescal is such a talent
Poor Things! It was a very beautiful movie to watch
Broadcast News, I’m still mad about the ending
We watched La La Land on NYE and I’m convinced that Chazelle doesn’t know enough about dance and choreography to film it well.
Listening to…my body, or trying to!
xoxo
mvp
sorry tim!
This actually seems like a very reasonable, manageable approach, with fabric recycling for the bits that (literally) don’t make the cut. https://runningstitchquilts.com/blogs/news/how-i-store-and-manage-my-fabric-scraps
The cat genuinely loves the fabricpalooza situation, so good for her.
How many times have I left things at home, or misplaced my cellphone, or my glasses for that matter? I can hear my friends shouting — this sounds like ADHD! I know! Maybe 2024 is the year I address this.
In what’s now the funniest/most horrifying instance of this, in my senior year of high school I forgot to send in some important paperwork on time for a National Merit Award thing and missed out on scholarships because of it. I remember my mom was very confused at the time, meanwhile I found the scrunched up form in the back of my 1995 Ford Explorer the summer before college once the die had already been cast anyways. SORRY MOM.
On the other hand, I am incredibly lucky to work in an environment where most of my work is managed digitally. I honestly don’t know how I succeeded at jobs pre Slack & Asana. The freedom of not losing papers in a filing cabinet, and of being able to find things quickly and easily! Yes chef.
A topic for another day — how putting things down for a while is often the right choice, and also the Ira Glass thing about the gap between your vision and skills when you are a beginner https://www.thisamericanlife.org/extras/the-gap
I love continuing to read your beautifully crafted writing. I also love, and can’t keep up with, following your numerous quilting projects. The pouf is brilliant! Your work, both writing and quilting, continue to bring joy into my life. Thank you for sharing!♥️