Organizing and inventory-ing

Yes, I know the proper form of inventory in this case is actually inventory and that there is no such word as inventory-ing but it amuses me. :-)

I have been wanting for  a while now to have a serious look at my stash. A number of people I read  keep a log of how much comes in and goes out - which is something I wanted to try. One of my goals this year is to use more than I buy and to whittle down my scraps.  So I hauled out my stash, every piece of it, and sorted, assessed, measured and organized.  I had estimated that everything, fat quarters and larger, would be about 100 yards.  I was wrong...  It was more but still quite reasonable, though given the limited storage space and budget I have, I wouldn't want it to grow much larger.

I pulled all my solids since I'm in the Simply Solids Bee and wanted to have an idea of exactly what I had and where my colour holes were... Turns out I had no pink.  Seriously? So I added some.

They're now in a box, sort of file-like, with my charm packs and a single junior jelly roll.

The rest of my stash I separated into colour. Ish.  I kept all my Lizzy House Peeps and Outfoxed together.  I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with it all but I'm also not ready to cut it.  It's a tricky bunch.  I also kept novelty prints in their own pile; I broke those down by type instead of colour. Here are my three piles:

They are all now neatly tucked back onto my shelf and I have a much more clear idea of what I have and how much of it.  Yay!!

As for scraps, while they are loosely organized, from less than an FQ to crumbs,  I still have some major work to do and I wonder how I'm going to track usage of them since they're, well, not worth measuring in any conventional way.  (I'm not calculating the surface area of each little crumb - are you kidding me? I'm not THAT crazy.)  So far, I think I might turn to weight.  I can whittle them down by pounds...  Can you imagine?  "Hey, gals! I dropped five lbs!" or "I couldn't stop chewing on my stash and I gained eight pounds!!" Heehee.

Stash at start of January:  134.25 yards
In since: 23.5 yards
Out as of Feb 5th: 25.5 yards (most of this on stuff I haven't shown you yet...)
Net: -2 yards

Stash count: 132.25 yards, unknown lbs of scraps.

And I made another Guild Bag, using the tutorial I wrote last week. :-)  Addictive!

Much happier with my zipper this time!

The QAYG Guild Bag: Tutorial

Our guild participated in the Madrona Road Challenge.

The rules were we could add more of the same line or solids.  And we preferred that whatever it was be quilted.

I needed a bag to take all my guild stuff to and from meetings in so the idea of using Madrona Road for it made sense to me. To make sure I kept it within the "rules", I made it quilt-as-you-go-style, which actually lent a lot of support to the sides and bottom.  Works for me!  The pocket design was inspired by that fabulous herringbone print.

It's got two exterior pockets, an inside zippered pocket, a large notebook or tablet pocket, and a divided pocket for little things and pens. There's plenty of room for my binder, clipboard and various supplies.  It's been working really well so far and keeps my all my guild stuff in one place. Handy!

I didn't follow a pattern - just a sketch I did quickly before I started. I've posted a tutorial  for the bag on the Saskatoon Modern Quilt Guild page, if you'd like to check it out!

TUTORIAL LINK: Click Here