If you are anything like me, you hate to throw out perfectly good fabric scraps! I make a lot of similar sized cuts for the projects I typically make, my soft baby toy Jumble Balls. Depending on the size of the fabric, I almost always have a strip of fabric left. I have been saving and using my scraps fairly regularly.
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| Lavender filled scrap sachet - measures about 4" square. |
Recently I have created a few appliqued tree pillows. They have been my most popular items on Flickr and I donated one to my nephew Mitch's school fundraiser and it fetched a nice high price. These are fun to make and I learned about them from the Sew Mama Sew site, specifically from Cluck Cluck Sew.
So far, this autumn themed pillow is hands down my favorite! The colors are wonderful.
The same idea can be used to create other pillows as well, like these two featuring circles and squares.
You can make all kinds of coasters with very small amounts of fabric. These start out at 5" squares.
Of course the most logical thing to do with all my fabric scraps is make a quilt. I have felt intimidated about making a quilt for some time. Maybe because my mother is a fantastic quilt maker and she quilts the tops all by hand. Well, I haven't got the time or the patience for that!I made this baby quilt for my friend Joanna. I used a variety of scrap fabric, lots of polka-dots, and loads with little animals - owls, ducks, caterpillars, dogs, birds, etc. Each piece is 5" wide and the length varies - some are 2.5", some 3.5" and others just under 4". I sewed the pieces into 5 strips. The backing is a blue dot minky fleece, which is super soft. The quilt is top stitched and I choose not to put batting in the middle as I didn't want it to be too thick.
For this linen pillow, which was a birthday gift for my friend Mary, I made a bird pattern and a variety of blue and green fabrics.
I plan to make another one of these soon, as I still have a small basket filled with scraps!
What to make with fabric scraps:
Pincushions
fabric covered buttons (which can be made into jewelry, magnets, pushpins, hair ties, etc)
cell phone or ipod case
doll clothes
For very tiny scraps of fabric, button cover projects are great. You can purchase the button cover sets on Etsy and they come in a variety of sizes. They come with either a button backing, which you'd sewn onto clothes, or flat backs that are easy to adhere a variety of clips to. You can attach them to ring and bracelet blanks or adhere the button covers to magnets, paperclips, or hair clips. They are so pretty, I made pushpin and magnet sets for all my coworkers for Christmas this year.
