Declutter Challenge 2023 - Day 19 - Precuts
We have three more days to go. The finish line is in sight. I know we can do it.
Today we are dealing with our Precuts. That is our jellyrolls, our layers cakes, charm packs and fat quarter bundles.
These are delightful prepacks of fabric, all from the same designer from the same line so all the colours coordinate. But you also might have some bundles that a store curated for you. It should be easy peasy to use them right. Again, they feel like a shortcut as they are already sorted and cut but there is still a lot of effort and money necessary to turn that fabric into a quilt.
Each layer cake and jelly roll has enough to make one lap quilt, a charm pack can make a baby quilt. A 20 pack fat quarter bundle can make two lap quilts. So they might seem small and stackable but they are a lot of fabric. And remember you have paid a premium for these precuts…and I showed you how much of a premium in this video.
So how many quilts can you make with the precuts that you have? How many quilts do you want to make with them? Do you still like them? I know how tempting they are. We often default to them when we can’t figure out anything else.
Though I personally I dislike the smaller precuts, I still found myself with 4 charm packs and one layer cake and three jelly rolls this year. I also found a couple of fat quarter bundle that I just vaguely remember purchasing. Do I still really want to make them? Some hard choices.
The good news is that precuts are easy to resell. They are just as tempting to others as they are to us. They also make great gifts for other quilters so all is not lost.
And a final point is that you might also need to take a good hard look at how you can control how many new ones come into your space in the coming year.
And we have not covered orphan blocks yet. They are great to incorporate into backs or smaller projects. You can used them as practice pieces for quilting designs. But some are just dogs and it's time to let go of them.
Take care. See you tomorrow for the penultimate day, Day 20.