Tips, Tools & Techniques - Making Fabric from Scraps

Like all good crafters, I have been saving every scrap from my sewing and embroidery projects. Even the bits of thread and tiniest snippets of fabric. I knew I was saving them for something (stuffing maybe?!) but then I came across this post by Just Jude and I had to try it immediately! The idea is that you can create a fun, new piece of fabric that you can then use for whatever you'd like.

I sorted my scraps into "brights & whites" and put the paler ones to one side. Some of the scraps were too small to use for anything else but a little too big for this project, so I snipped them into smaller pieces. I also had a collection of bits of wool, threads, and even some pom poms that I had stupidly cut into (forgetting that pom poms are essentially... bits of wool!!)

Once I had sorted them out, I chose my backing fabric - I went for a bright green to complement all the colours (there was less of the green). I actually experimented with a few including white but the green was my favourite!

I then cut a piece of water soluble fabric the same size as the backing piece, and sandwiched the scraps between them. Realising I could have a bigger finished piece if I spaced our the scraps more, I then had to add a couple of cut pieces of water soluble to accommodate for this. I pinned the whole thing together, including through the middle (not shown here but this was needed to ensure that the scraps stayed relatively still) and took it over to the sewing machine.

You can do free motion embroidery over this but I was feeling lazy so stuck to a straight stitch with my normal foot. I stitched up and down, side to side in a grid and then did lots of diagonals. Jude suggests to "stitch it within an inch of its life" !

Then its simply a case of running it under the tap to dissolve the upper piece. I was nervous at this stage but it came out fine! I washed it through a few times to get rid of the starchy feeling, and then wrung it out and left it in the sun to dry!

And here it is all nicely ironed around the edges (but not over the scraps as I wanted them to still have a raised texture)

Close up:

And now the hard part, deciding what to use it for. I was thinking it would make a lovely notebook/journal cover.

 It also makes great iPhone wallpaper!! Do you have any other ideas?

We are linking up to these parties!

19th Aug 2013: Update - this post was featured here at Family Home and Life