I like to take workshops to see what makes the presenter tick. I like to know how they analyze what they are doing, what their method of working is. In case you wanted to know but were afraid to ask (or maybe you didn't want to know) this is how I work.Cutting and sorting: when I choose the fabrics I need to cut for a project I cut a generous clean up cut. This becomes the scraps for crazy piecing and some of my crooked strip quilts. 
I usually cut 4 fabrics at a time.
Then I cut a 1-1/2" strip, a 2" strip and a 2-1/2" strip. The first 2 sizes of strips are stored in boxes marked with size and whether they are batiks or regular fabrics. The 2-1/2" strip gets cut into squares and rectangles for my colorwash type quilts. This way I am always prepared for a strip piecing project, which you may have guessed is one of my favorites. I believe in saving time, since we can't buy any more of it. The boxes of 1-1/2" strips were brought out to choose the fabrics for my Prismatic Garden series. There is no way I would pull out hundreds of fabrics to cut just one strip off of them. 
This is the stack of bins where I throw all of the scraps as I am working on projects. This is before sorting.
The longer strips have a home in a large mesh cube where they eventually get sorted by warm or cool colors. The little scraps get sorted into tiny, little, med. size, larger (but still small scraps) and scraps that need to be cut to be used. I do all of this sorting in my down time, when I am tired or have a migraine, or just after finishing one project and I'm not sure what I will start next. Just playing with the pieces of fabric, seeing color combinations together that I would never have thought of, is inspiring and rejuvenating.
My scrap bags and boxes are overflowing. Earlier this year I decided to start making crazy pieced blocks of each color of the rainbow, with some blocks the combination of the 2 that will touch each other. I don't know how big this project will be or what the layout will be. I just put some pieces up on the wall to get an idea of what it might look like. I started with these 3 colors.
Now I am starting on the reds. My plan right now is to make at least 30 squares of each color and then decide what I will do with them.
These 3 pictures are scans of photographs, just so you can see some of the other layouts I have done with the Prismatic Garden series. They aren't very clear and the color is off a little too. I'll have to see if I can get some better scans of them for my archives. This first one is called Rainy Day Garden and I sold it through a gallery in Door County, Wisconsin. Maybe the owner of it reads my blog and could send me a good digital picture of it.
I think this one was called Garden Path and I'm not sure which number it is in the series but I think it would be #4 or #5.
This one was made with a lot of the leftovers so it has to be in the #5 or #6 position in the series. After this one I gave all of the rest of the leftover triangles to a friend and I started with all new ones for the next pieces.
I made bags like these as gifts for my friends who worked with me at a quilt shop. Usually they were made with crazy piecing or with trial pieces like chevron borders and bias made from strip piecing. We use them to carry our rotary cutters, scissors, etc. when we travel to sew somewhere other than home.
I had a friend named Jane who lived in my neighborhood. I met her when she owned the health food store in town. She loved primitives and most of the things she made were subjected to coffee grounds and tea dyeing. We ended up starting a group at the store I worked at and it was called Noah and Friends. We were heavily into the Red Wagon books and their wonderful quilts. I started making one like one in a book and decided it would be all hand appliqued and hand quilted. It had 3 cornstalks; after appliqueing awhile I decided one was just fine. I added the moon and stars to mine and then Jane convinced me there should be an evil eye to keep away the evil spirits so there it is on the bottom right corner. I wanted my quilting to be very primitive and uneven and also wanted the corners of the binding to curve as if I hadn't learned how to do mitered corners.
A close up of my uneven quilting and the evil eye.
I have thought this one was ready to sew together 3 times in the last 4 days and each time I would change a few of the triangles. Last night I decided it is ready. It will change a lot in the sewing. The 2 colors that are in the tips of the triangles will be greatly reduced in size with the seams so whatever that end of the triangle is doing in the design now will be changed.
Today is grocery day for my parents and I have a software class to attend this afternoon. I hope I will get all of the individual squares (4 triangles) sewn together by tonight. Then I can judge once more if it is ready to be sewn together or if something needs to be changed.
I usually cut 4 fabrics at a time.
Then I cut a 1-1/2" strip, a 2" strip and a 2-1/2" strip. The first 2 sizes of strips are stored in boxes marked with size and whether they are batiks or regular fabrics. The 2-1/2" strip gets cut into squares and rectangles for my colorwash type quilts. This way I am always prepared for a strip piecing project, which you may have guessed is one of my favorites. I believe in saving time, since we can't buy any more of it. 
This is the stack of bins where I throw all of the scraps as I am working on projects. This is before sorting.
The longer strips have a home in a large mesh cube where they eventually get sorted by warm or cool colors. The little scraps get sorted into tiny, little, med. size, larger (but still small scraps) and scraps that need to be cut to be used. I do all of this sorting in my down time, when I am tired or have a migraine, or just after finishing one project and I'm not sure what I will start next. Just playing with the pieces of fabric, seeing color combinations together that I would never have thought of, is inspiring and rejuvenating.
