Ripping and Stripping?

I spent much of my free time this past week working on ripping apart the blocks that I put together at the quilt retreat that were not the right size. After ripping I pulled out all the little threads, pressing them and then trimming them. They are all ready to start putting them back together. That project was put on hold over the weekend though because my niece Katie came over to enlist my help and opinion and my dining room floor to layout the 29 blocks she got for her birthday last August. This is the layout we came up withShe did the math and handed me pieces to sew together and we got it into rows and then I let her sew the rows together while I cut foundation squares and diagonal strips for a strip pieced quilt for our pastor who is leaving later this month. After her top was together she just didn't think she had it in her to add borders so she started making the strip pieced blocks. We took a break to watch some TV with my hubby and then yesterday she and I had two sewing machines going and got all 120 blocks made! This morning I got up and got those blocks together into a top!
As we were sewing the blocks it just didn't seem like the bin of scraps was getting any emptier! When the blocks were done and all the scraps that fell to the floor were crammed back in we could see a difference though not a huge one. We figured we should have weighed the bin before and after and maybe that would have told the story. Here is what I have left in this bin of scraps - I am pretty sure I have more elsewhere but I am trying to use up this one before I go hunting for more. If I was a more organized person I would schedule my time in the sewing room so that I made a few string blocks each day or week to slowly empty that bin but my reality is that I am more of a binge type sewer!