Scrap storage

That old perplexity, small fabric scraps. As I’ve gotten more into quilting, I’ve started accumulating scraps of fabric at a faster pace and have found it difficult to keep them organized. The scraps that are really too small get tossed into my ‘stuffing basket’ and are recycled as stuffing for other projects. But I like to save as much as I can; pieces that are even a couple of inches wide can be useful for little FPP projects. I’ve tried wrapping them in bundles, folding them in bins, storing them in colour-coded bags, etc. Nothing stays organized for very long.

The other day, I remembered I still had an old package of archival sleeves for storing negatives, and, since it might be a while before I had any new negatives to put in them, I wondered if I might be able to use them for my smallest scraps instead. (These sleeves are for medium-format, 120 mm, negatives, so they were the perfect size. Sleeves for 35mm film might have been a bit too small.)

I sorted the scraps and folded them to fit the slots, and… it actually worked out well! After getting all the scraps into sleeves, I was able to fit the sleeves into a 3 inch binder, which I have more confidence in than bins or bags of scraps. I also like that I get a clear view of all my little pieces this way whenever I am looking for scraps for a project.

For my larger scraps, I think I’m going to try a similar approach with regular page protectors.