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Tag Archives: recycling

Fabric gift bags from scraps

14 Sunday Nov 2010

Posted by sewjournal in Sew journal

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

gift bags, recycling, scraps, sewing, sewing blog, sewjournal blog, Xmas gift bags

I really don’t like wrapping paper. First because all the nice ones are so expensive and second because 30 seconds after the person has received the gift, the paper is ripped to shreds and in the bin.

So in the interests of saving money, saving closet space, saving trees and saving the planet here are a couple of small gift bags I made from my scrap bag.

The larger one can hold a tube of hand cream or a some thread, a box of pins, some needles and a seam ripper. The smaller one can hold earrings, or an emergency sewing kit with small scissors etc. The scraps I used here are the off-cuts from my It’s a Hoot baby quilt.

Small is beautiful but big is better

In the recycled gift bag world anyway. We’ve all got scrap bags and no doubt we will all have to wrap gifts at sometime or another. The gift bag you make doesn’t have to be small it can be as big as the gift you are giving. Just sew all your scraps together until you have a piece of fabric the right size and then make a fabric envelope. Even if you don’t want to make a bag why not just sew the scraps together to make a large piece of fabric and wrap the gift with it and tie it with string or ribbon. It will look wonderful, it will encourage the recipient to recycle it when they give a gift and you’ll have done your bit for scrap-busting and saving the planet!

If you’ve made any recycled gift wrappers please leave a link in your comment so we can all take a look.

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One person’s trash…

07 Sunday Nov 2010

Posted by sewjournal in Sew journal

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

hemp fabric, linen, quilting blog, recycling, sewing blog, sewjournal blog, wabi sabi

… is another’s treasure. So the saying goes. In this case one man’s torn shirt is another woman’s stash addition. My husband tore his shirt the other day.

It was a shame because it was a lovely hemp shirt that had been washed and ironed so many times as to be soft and supple and really lovely. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen hemp fabric but the good quality ones can be as good as fine linen. So when he sadly showed me his torn shirt I immediately looked on the bright side and added it to the stash of old linens I am collecting to make another Wabi Sabi style recycled quilt.

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A confluence of inspirations

06 Monday Sep 2010

Posted by sewjournal in Sew journal

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

inspiration + necessity, patchwork, quilting, quilting blog, Quilts of Gees Bend, recycling, sewing blog, sewjournal blog, utilitarian quilts

I wonder what the collective noun for inspirations really is? Anyhow confluence will do because four inspirations all came together yesterday morning and stopped me in my scrap busting, square cutting tracks. Four inspirations plus Necessity who we all know is the mother of invention. 🙂

Inspiration 1

I watched Rossie’s video presentation about modern quilts and she spoke about the concept of “wabi sabi”. According to Wikipedia “Wabi sabi represents a comprehensive Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is ‘imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete'”.

Inspiration 2

I’ve always liked Silly Boo Dilly’s work quilts with their utility quilting stitches and patched effect.

Inspiration 3

The Gee’s Bend Quilts fascinated me when I saw the book about them at a friend’s house in Washington, DC last year.

Inspiration 4

Jenny of Elefantz had an August Reinvention Challenge on. Some of the things she made with an old orange shirt were really beautiful.

Necessity

I have problem ankles and when I sit cross-legged to meditate they cause me pain. To this end I purchased a meditation stool. It has however, two problems. The first is the colour which is lovely but hardly conducive to contemplation. The second is that it is too high for me. I had always planned to make a long, thin cushioned mat to go under it to lift me up and protect my knees.

The inspirations and necessity converge

I decided to cover the seat and make a cushion for underneath. As I was rifling through my scrap bag busily extracting fabrics to cut into squares I came across two linen dresses that I had stuffed in there. They were too faded to wear any longer but I loved the soft, washed out feel of the 100% linen fabric and so had saved it for a “rainy day”. Well yesterday was it.

As I fondled the soft, faded fabric I was reminded of the four previously mentioned inspirations and so the meditation stool and cushion projects were born. Here are some photos of the fabric and the process I used to cut them up and reassemble them into reasonable sized pieces of fabric that I could use for the two projects. If you click on the thumbnails you’ll get larger photos. As you can see I didn’t worry about removing the darts. In fact I left them in as they add character to the final piece and speak of the fact that they are recycled pieces of fabric. I think it all adds to the utilitarian beauty of  it.

I didn’t worry about precise seams etc., as the fabric doesn’t hold its shape and deforms very easily. Again I didn’t mind this as it resonated with the whole concept.

Once I had my fabric pieces I went to work transforming the stool first of all. I folded the fabric around the stool, anchoring it with long pins. I now need to buy some upholstery nails to attach it permanently to the seat. Once that is done I plan to embellish it with some “utilitarian quilting stitches”.
Here are some more pictures of the stool. I’ll leave the cushion project until tomorrow to show you. Stay tuned…

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