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| Great British Sewing Bee Week Five! |
I really enjoyed this week, and seeing the ways in which people used their own offcuts to make something new and wearable. It was quite shocking how many scraps they'd created over the first five weeks of the show: as Patrick said, home sewers waste about 30% of the fabric that they buy. Yikes!
I try to reduce the level of my scraps in many ways -- I use a lot of cotton in my garment sewing, which then goes into my quilting scrap buckets. And the dress weight fabrics go into my art quilt scrap pile! I like to use up bigger scraps in new projects for pocket bags, trims, bias, to cover buttons, as accents and so on. You can also use the right kind of scraps to make brooches, badges, and so forth. Fortunately my city now has a textile recycling program, so the tiny bits and thread ends and so forth go into a big bag under my sewing table -- when it's full, off it goes to the recycling bins. Of course, you can also use those tiny bits as filler for a scrapbuster like the Pouf from Closet Case Patterns!
Another way I try to reduce my fabric waste is through upcycling fabrics -- a lot of my stash has come from thrift stores (including lots of sheets, duvets, pillowcases etc.. or gifts from older sewers clearing their stashes.
Here are just a few of my garments made from old sheets, a pillowcase, and a purple duvet cover. I still have enough of that to make a matching dress if I want to ;)
There was also a dress made from a tablecloth with matching cape from a variety of dresses cut up and reassembled, which I made for a local Refashioning fashion show last year, and which was modelled by a friend. It was a lot of fun. (You can see full info plus this outfit in motion in my original post.)
I have lots of ideas to use up more of my scraps by making some pillow covers, and maybe a journal cover or two. Then of course I'll have to make a matching pencil case for the journals. If you want to use your dress weight fabrics for these kind of craft projects you can fuse them to some lightweight interfacing first, so that they act more like a cotton when you are piecing them all together. There are so many ways to reduce your waste. What are some of your favourite scrap busting/waste reduction projects?
I have always been twitchy about throwing away scraps, so anything larger than my hand gets kept...and I don't have huge hands! This means I have a LOT of scraps unfortunately. I have used some in various ways- making costume bits and bobs, piecing together into a grand total of two small quilts [when I found I quite like piecing but hate hate hate quilting. I made a pieced flounced skirt for a steampunk outfit as part of my SWAP entry a few years back, cushions and so on, and yes, I'm on the Closet Case pouffe trail with a giant carrier back of threads and scraps which will make for several Xmas presents this year. Last year's SWAP tried to be centred on recycling and remaking, and I have several pieced garments from that, all much worn. One of my next projects will also be a geodesic sweater, so watch this space lol [well, not this one, MY one!]
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the pouf -- I do intend to make one at some point! I'll keep an eye out for your Geodesic sweater. There are so many interesting patterns that could be made via scrap piecing. Maybe I'll have to do a round up of those at some point.
Delete...so glad that one 'stuck' as I'm forever hitting 'sign out' on your comments because it's where I expect 'submit' to be. I don't always have the energy to re-type when I lose my posts!
ReplyDeleteI hear you -- I do it myself constantly. Argh to blogger templates.
DeleteMelanie you have made an amazing number of items recycled/upcycled. I have so many pieces of fabric to do so. I do make dolls clothes for my grandaughter, but otherwise I really have to stop thinking about it. I have a huge collection of smaller pieces not enough on their own for a garment. But there is more to sew than only garments. I should look at other ideas.
ReplyDeleteI don't have any small children in my life so I didn't think of doll clothes -- I used to make Barbie clothes for a little girl I babysat, which was really fun to do. There a few books out there that go over some scrap projects for quilters, and some of those are adaptable for garment fabrics too. Maybe I'll review one or two!
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