Scrap Sorting Mini Tutorial

Have you ever wondered why it is so hard to sort quilt fabrics and scraps! I think there are 3 reasons:

  1. Time - it takes a lot of time to sort fabric scraps whether you sort by size, color or style.
  2. Using scraps can be arduous compared to pulling yardage from your stash! So many quilters store their scraps instead of using them. 
  3. Difficulty with shades and tones of fabric.
So today I decided to share my scrap sorting process, there are several ways you can sort scraps such as:
  • color
  • style; modern, reproduction, traditional, solid, etc.
  • size: I classify anything less than a fat eighth a scrap and I keep any piece of fabric big enough to cut a 2" square from and strips wider than 3/4" so there's a lot of variation within the size range.
I like to sort by color primarily. Here's my process in a nut shell:
1. Color sort
Once you have your rainbow of scraps sorted focus on one color, in this example I decided to use blues:

Separate each color into shades/ tones
There is a ton of variation in every color, but the blues illustrate this very well.
When assessing whether something is a light blue or an aqua blue here's a tip: aqua blues have a hint of green to them. And obviously purpley blues have a hint of purple. That comes back to the fact that the secondary colors are made using the primary colors and then there are tertiary colors too! So the degree of color is determined by how much of each color is added during manufacturing. Here's graphic that simulates various color transitions:
All of those started off as basic blue! By adding white the basic blues get lighter. By adding a hint of a different color such as purple, green or grey we can create a whole new array of paler tones once we add the white to lighten! 
So sorting scraps is actually quite a complex skill, it isn't as easy as just the ROYGBIV rainbow!

Basically you can combine any and all of these colors to create a multitude of color variation and quilt fabric manufacturers do exactly that!
Sorting scraps is actually a wonderful way to learn about color and increase your color confidence.
So waste no more time, go grab some scraps and start sorting!
Pop to my website now to download a printable version of the scrap sorting summary:


at