Holy Scraps !

Well, the "girls" came up with the perfect name for this blog.... We had our Thornberry quilt group meeting today at my house and we had gotten this notion to have this scrap cutting day. So everyone was to bring scraps and cutting things and ironing things and scrap patterns and we thought we'd whip these scraps into shape. Little did we know everyone had BAGS and BAGS of them ! They just sort of snuck in the door and then as we worked they sort of fluffed and I wonder if we really eliminated any bags at all ! Here is our fearless leader of the day... Lorene had us all whipped into shape in no time, it was a sweat shop ! she had wonderfully organized cutting charts according to scrap patterns that people had given her the sizes for, charts and names and we really did appear quite organized. She kept us all in shape, set the timer for an hour at a time, then we got a 10 minute break to reguvinate ourselves. 10 minutes later the timer went off and back to work !
Louise was very busy. she was cutting many many plaid fabrics for a couple patterns we all loved ! Many a guy quilt will come out of those plaids ! How wonderful quilters are to share !
Sue was also a cutter and she ended up in the red" departement" but then got sick of reds so switched me for the neutrals. Her and I used my big cutting table that I won and it worked great. Near the end she ended up going to the "organizing department" as we sort of realized there is no way we will cut everything in one day.
Judy was the official ironer of the day, Judy loves to iron ! She'd press and then deliver to the right area for cutting ... neutrals, reds, plaids, assorted colors!
And here is Barb, she ironed also but then went to the cutting area .....
Terry P. was our official person to sort and make piles of all the cut scraps. She had everyone's names and kept all the scraps evened out as they were cut, Lorene had the clever idea of trays from the dollar store so she would go around taking our tray and then splitting them all up. Katie helped her for awhile.
And then Emma thought she should help too. Aren't pool tables great for so many things !
Finally when the timer went off Lorene let us have lunch ! We had a wonderful potluck like usual and then it was back to work !!!! At the next timer break we had birthday cake for Terry P. Sue and Barb, all having birthdays within 3 weeks of each other.
Well towards 3:00 we got "real" with this thought process and started realizing we were not going to finish this project, the scraps were growing and fluffing and perhaps having babies along that wall ! So Sue and Barb started sorting thru all the bags and got alot of things separated out and we all went home with a huge bag of scraps to get ironed before we do this again. That should save alot of time.
Next month we meet at Judy's so I think we'll be very organized again to get things cut. We all went home with a huge bag of squares and quilt parts all cut so it'll be fun now to organize what we did into the scrap patterns that they go with and see how much we really did do ! We are thinking once the scraps are in control we could do this once a year and stay caught up. But oh my who would think there would be that many scraps !

9 quilters x lots of fabric = scraps by the buckets full !

So here we are at the end, Mindy got here after work, Judy is STILL ironing and Ken is just shaking his head at the amazing piles ! Emma is in the action on the counter of course !
So it was a very fun day, I for one deal with my scraps alot as I make them and this definitly reaffirmed that it's a good thing to do as once they get into the big bags it's overwhelming ! So until next month when we do it all again we can keep quilting and thinking about what wonderful quilts we will get out of our scrap cutting days !