Quilter's Scrap Pantry: a Book Review

 I received a free digital review copy of Quilter's Scrap Pantry by SusanClaire Mayfield. through Net Galley. I have not received any compensation for this review.

Organizing my fabric leftovers is something that I must make a priority, so that's why I requested this book on NetGalley. And I was looking forward to what the author had to share with me. 
She starts off with basic quilting equipment, supplies and techniques. To me, this seems rather redundant to a quilter with enough experience to have a collection of scraps to organize. On the other hand, starting out organized might prevent the scrap hoard from getting out of control like mine. She then goes on to describe the choices of containers required to keep your scraps organized. I will say that this inspired me to look online to see what might work for me. I already have several units of Kallax shelving units from Ikea in my studio, so I explored what was available for storage in these units. I was very pleased to find these

and these. 

I'll start with this metal mesh bin. I have several of the fabric bins that fit the Kallax shelving. Most of them are storing yarn, but in one of them I had my layer cakes and some coordinating yardage. However, the fabric bin was not sturdy enough to support all of that fabric. So, I decided I'd try this metal one. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be sturdy enough to support all of that weight either. I tried to pull it out again to add another item or two and it started to bend. There is a rattan basket available at Ikea that fits these shelves as well and I might have to try one of those for my layer cakes instead. 
The plastic storage boxes in the first picture, however, are great. I bought a total of 8 of them, but will likely buy more as I gradually organize my shelves. The two in the picture contain fabric panels in the top one and jelly rolls and charm squares in the bottom one. They are 13" square on the outside, but I haven't had a chance to see if they will store a 12½" quilt block flat. That would be really awesome if they did. I also find that the boxes that they come in are a great size for storage/shipping. 
So, if nothing else, this book has inspired me to actually do something to start getting organized. 
The next part of the book details her suggested method of organizing. The author cuts her leftovers into smaller pieces of predetermined sizes, ranging from 1½" squares to 6½" squares and then various rectangles as well, plus some uncut strips. She then assembles some of these pieces into units: 4-patch, 9-patch, snowball blocks, flying geese and HSTs. 
I honestly see a great deal of merit in her method. It would simplify and expedite using up one's scraps if you just had to open a box/drawer/bag that had the correct size in it, make your selection and start sewing. However, for me, I have a few issues with this method. The first thing is the HSTs. I rarely trim anything, so I prefer to start with 2⅞" squares, for example, when I want a finished size of 2". I don't want to start with a 3" square and have to trim. All of the effort I've put into saving time by precutting all of my scraps is then taken up by having to trim all of my HSTs. And I hate trimming. The second issue is the flying geese units, which she makes using the stitch and flip method, which wastes fabric when you have to cut the corners off. I hate wasting fabric and prefer the no-waste method, which requires measurements by the quarter and eighth inches. These are not included in her pre-cuts. She has whole and half inches. And to start trying to include quarter and eighth inches would be overwhelming. I think she made the best choice by only including the ones she did. But that doesn't mean that it's going to work for me. Because I never know where, when and how I'm going to end up using my fabric leftovers, I prefer to leave them as the large pieces that they are. That way I can determine what size to cut them when I do get around to using them. And some of my pieces are large enough that they have filled in a gap in a quilt I was working on. If I had already cut them down into multiple pieces of various sizes, I couldn't have done that. So, my boxes instead will be mostly the pieces as they are when I'm finished the quilt they were originally purchased for. I plan to organize them by colour. Just having them organized in individual boxes, rather than all over my studio, or piled haphazardly on a shelf, will definitely help me in my quilt-making and scrap use. 
I'm not totally ruling out the author's method, however. I think I may use it on a more limited basis when I have a particular scrappy project in mind. Currently, I have in mind a project that will require 480 HSTs that are 2½" finished size. That means I will need 240 each light and dark 3⅜" squares. So precutting these as I'm organizing my fabric leftovers makes sense for me. 
Before I continue with my review of the book, I'd just like to point some things out about digital review copies of a book. These are not final, published copies, so there are lots of imperfections. In this particular book, several of the photographs are upside down. And some pictures appear more like some glowing apparition. 

Like this, 

or this. There are also outlines that should contain diagrams, but they are empty. There are paragraphs that are not where they're supposed to be and instructions that are out of order. If I was reviewing a finished copy of a book, then I would likely make some comments about the layout and pictures, but this is not possible with this digital review copy.
Moving on in the book, the next section tells how to assemble the various units to make blocks and full quilts. Normally, when I review a quilting book, I like to make at least one project from the book so that I can discover from experience how clear the instructions are. I wasn't sure if I was going to do that with this book for two reasons. The first reason is that I consider this book more about organizing fabric scraps and not so much a book about making quilts. And the second issue, of course, is the lack of usable pictures and diagrams. It appeared that it would have to be a mystery quilt, if I wanted to attempt it at all. But then I got towards the back of the book and suddenly there were diagrams of blocks and full quilts. And the quilts looked interesting enough that I wanted to try one. So, I chose the medallion quilt. And while I didn't have the precut squares/rectangles and premade units, and I did follow my preferred methods for making HSTs and flying geese, it still was a great pattern. Some of the instructions were out of order in my copy, but they were numbered, so I was still able to follow them. They are in simple, plain English and easy to follow. The steps are very clear.

So, this will be the very first quilt that I have made fully from quilt leftovers. It's a lot of fun and I'm happy with how it's turning out. I wanted this post to include a picture of the completed quilt, but other projects interrupted and I think I've waited long enough to post my review. 
The author finishes the book with instructions on how to bind a quilt (did I miss the quilting part?) and further ideas for how to use scraps. Aside from my personal preferences for how I want to manage my scraps, I feel this is a very worthwhile book.