SOLVED: a mystery of squares, waffles and scraps... (and a fluffy cat for good measure...)

i had an old, vintage suitcase that was my mothers. when i first began RSCing in 2014, i stored all my 3" squares in there.

it seemed to be quite adequate. the squares were neatly stacked according to color. every month i would dutifully cut up some scraps from my sewing (clothes, other quilts, dresses ect...) and add them to the suitcase. (which was, of course, artfully displayed in my sewing room) 

over time it got quite full, and comfy, and Darling Millie could be found napping in the suitcase of squares. 

and the suitcase was so full, and pretty soon the squares were a bit jumbled. i tried (i really did!) to use more and more squares, and make more and more quilts. believe it or not, i finally used so many squares in quilts for MCC, S2W (our church sewing group) and my family that now the squares fit in one of my sliding baskets that i use for storage in my sewing room.  (yay, me!) 

however, most folks know that i really enjoy sewing with scraps, so i get lots of bits-n-bobs passed along to me at regular intervals. along with my regular sewing, and the scraps that i generate myself, i keep the square situation at full capacity, despite being pretty dedicated about cutting my scraps and moving them into the drawer, then into blocks and quilts. 

 

but this year, i decided i should think of some more blocks that take EVEN MORE squares. waffle blocks have been gaining popularity. and look how many SQUARES  they use! 15! in one block!

and: if i do an "opposite" block, i could use 10 more squares! that's 25 squares for one RSC color! furthermore, (i'm an oldest child; i really can't help being an overachiever) if i do 4 blocks a month, that's 50(!!!) squares! 

woohoo! yay, me, again...

so, i kept myself busy in the sewing room, making some pink waffle blocks, and cutting the brown strips for each block. (i chose brown because #1: it was in my stash, and #2: i read somewhere that brown is a good blender)

but after thinking some more (and taking another look at my squares drawer) i saw that i had lots of low volume 3" squares. i made 2 quilts in RSC17 that used lots of squares, and i still had *too many* of the LV squares. 

so i said to myself ("self", i says to meself) what if i make *even more* waffle blocks, and use the LV squares and the color of the month? that will use lots of squares, right? 

so i got out the stack of 3" LV squares from the drawer, and after doing the math for a lap size donation quilt (which of course, i actually did wrong, and will end up with enough blocks for a quilt to cover a small nation... math is not my strong point...) i started sorting into piles enough of the LV squares to make my desired # of blocks for the year. (which is 50, give or take 7 gabillion). 

the small pile below was what was left, and i was still a few blocks short. there was not enough variety in these squares; i needed some more scrappiness... 

 

so i dug through my stash again (a bit deeper this time) and came up with some more LV prints, and ran them through my Studio2 cutter with the 3" die, and got enough blocks to finish what i was working on. 

AND THIS IS WHAT WAS LEFT OVER!!! so now, i have a stack of leftovers, that's bigger than my stack of leftovers that i had almost used up. 

and that, dear friends, is that MYSTERY solved. why do we never run out of scraps? i present the obvious, solid evidence of why not: we're always sewing and creating, we're always making scraps. and since we have scraps, we'll just keep sewing and creating, right?