When to scrap a scrap

I am winding down today after having my oldest sister visit for a few days. It was fun to have her here but I learned a few things...we may look a lot alike, dress a lot a like, but when it comes to how we look at fabric we are not even on the same planet!

When we talked about here coming here while her husband was at a meeting in Charlotte she said she would help me get my sewing room in order. Sounds good to me...I am not to proud to take any help offered to get that mess under control! I think when she looked at the room she regretted making the offer....

Organizing a sewing room takes a lot of energy, patience and persistence. None of those words hold a lot of meaning in the my life right now. For my sister however they are not just words they are a mission statement. So when she walks into my kitchen an sees strips of various lengths of fabric "organized" by width over chairs, plastic boxes, a wooden bowl, a ceramic planter of a cart pulled by a Scottie dog, and an empty cardboard cat-food box. She turned a bit pale.

She is not one who is easily intimidated however. By day one the strips had been rounded up and neatly corraled into well marked boxes. Squares were bagged by size, any pieces less than a 1/4 yard were in a basket on the cutting table. I was having a large cup of coffee thinking we were finished when it happened - she found the box of salvages and bags of fabric strings hidden underneath my "walk the dog rainjacket" by the back door. She tossed the box (a rather large box but luckily Goldie wasn't in it at the time) into the center of kitchen and took multiple deep breaths. It was time for big sister-intervention.....

"Do you think this is fabric?" she asked. I began to wish I put something special in my coffee...if I went for the Baileys now she might see the 2-inch patriotic squares I hid in the liquor cabinet. Instead I ran for the little postcard I made using the salvages. She was not impressed. "So just how many of these cards to you think you will make?" Duh, I hate these counting questions! How many quilts do you own? How much fabric do you have? How many quilt tops? Do I look like the census taker?

So when is a scrap a scrap? My sister can make any clothing, window covering or upholstery she see's. She isn't a quilter. She sees absolutely no reason anyone would save a piece of fabric less than a fat quarter. I on the other hand once made a jacket for my Mother only to find out later my sister had taken it apart and put it together again. I do make nice quilts though. In my world any fabric larger than 1.5 by 1.5 has a bin with it's name on it. We had to agree to disagree.

She had a mission though. My room was to be organized and my kitchen cleared of fabric. I was afraid to go to sleep. In the morning I found "scraps" in my kitchen barrel. I was dumpster diving for fabric in my own house! I had to get her to focus on something else...hanging pictures abd quilts, finding a dress at the mall for my anniversary cruise, making a Red Velvet Cake, more airplane binders, and rearrange pottery on the shelves. I am exhausted but my stash is safe. Now I just have to take the plastic bag of recovered scraps from under the couch, iron them and find thier place in my newly organized sewing world....