My way to use up and recycle scraps of fabric.
 

At a quilt class a few weeks ago, the person in charge asked if I would give a short talk on what I do to recycle fabric etc. (She knows me.) I mentioned this to someone on the board and they said I should post it so here goes.

Use It Up! Wear it out! Make It Do or Do Without! These are words of the Great Depression and WWII years yet so applicable for today when fabric is anywhere from $8-$13 a yard if not more. So my question to you is..why are you tossing it in the trash can?

Some of my ideas may not be right for you but just things that I do. When I was small, one of my favorite things was to play in my mom's bottom drawer where she kept her clean rags. She said she would plink me down on the floor and open it up and I would keep busy for a long time, taking them in and out. ( I imagine I was under 2 years old). Yet even today, I love going through another person's rejects and their bag of scraps is like a wonderful treasure to me. The enjoyable thing for me is trying to figure out how to make those little bits and pieces, scraps and strings, into something useful and a fun challenge. So here are a few of my ideas plus some I have gleaned from other folks for using all those wonderful bits and pieces you might not have thought about. Plus a few other things that are not particularly fabric but do involve sewing in one way or another. I will describe the items in each picture.

Picture 1. The little mesh bags that produce from the grocery store sometimes comes in. I cut these so there is only a cut on bottom and top and it is still a complete circle. Sew fabric or bias tape on bottom to close it off. Make a casing on the top and run a string, twill tape (sewn in half length-wise) or some kind of smallish ribbon through the casing. Then put your soap slivers in and you can keep them from going down the drain. Plus the rather rough-ish bag makes a good scrubber. I cut plastic tub lids and sometimes milk cartons where there is a flat space into templates for my hexie projects. I like this better than the English method. Use a clean empty spool for a design in top of sugar cookies.

Pic. 1 & 2 Crystal light containers for storage of various sewing items. An old spoon that is no longer needed has little grooves cut in edges of bowl of spoon and it makes a handy tool to do pinning of quilts and saves your fingers. My DH did this with a file. A grapefruit spoon works for this too but I use mine for grapefruit. :-) If you can crochet, you can save the tabs on the bakery items and make a necklace. (This was a gift to me about 30 years ago from a dear friend.)

Pic. 3 Then comes selvedges. I cut them off about 1 1/4 inches and use them for lots of things. Here I have made some holly leaves after sewing the strips together. I actually found this idea here on the board but do not recall the neat person who posted it. Sew more strips together and make a little basket with boxed corners for storing little items. A shortning container makes a perfect liner for it.

Pic. 4 Make a pin cushion on top of a mason jar. I did not do this one but bought it from another person here on the board. They had filled jar with FQ's. What a fun idea.

Pic. 5. I take all those little scraps of and inch to two inches and use them for leader-enders when I am sewing. Eventually, the little piece gets bigger and bigger. Then I take my template, ( I chose a diamond for this project) and cut out the shape. Eventually, I will have a quilt. The trick here is to square off one edge, put two squared off edges together and sew a 1/4 inch seam. It grows quicker than you think. I take half an hour or so once in a while and get a pile pinned together. Then they go by my machine and are ready to grab. After each one is sewn, I iron and toss in a box to wait until it is time to trim a bunch all at once.

Pic. 6 A pin cushion chicken made with scraps of 5 inch squares. Or you could sew selveges together to make 4-5 inch squares and it would be a really funky chicken. Plus I used scraps of the produce netting plus some very tiny trimmings to make the comb of the chicken. The directions for making this chicken came from another member of this board. Such wonderful people here.
http://www.quiltingboard.com/tutoria...n-t143250.html

Pic. 7. I use the leftover strips of 3-4 inch muslin from backing a quilt and small strips of scraps and make piano key strips. I will trim them when I am finished and someday there will be a quilt that calls out for a funky border. Or I could use these strips to just make a quilt with solid strips in between rows. One could always have a braid strip going too with the same method. When you trim off corners and have triangles, they work great for using on another scrappy square where the last piece needs to be a triangle shape.

Pic. 8 With the trimmings/selvedge edges from fleece, I make cat toys. Cats don't care if it is selvedge. I stuff with poly fill and catnip, alternately; insert a piece of bias tape sewn in half on the end that is open and then sew shut. I have found, at least with my cat, it helps to tie a couple knots in the bias 'tail' to make it easier for them to grab it. The plaid one is just made with a scrap of flannel.