Skip to main content

Fabric for Next Year

I've been working with Fabscrap recycled fabrics for a couple of months, and I've had a lot of fun, too. This is everything I have left over from the November challenge. As with any resource I have some opinions about how valuable it is, as well as the drawbacks. I also need to be practical about what I want to use, what I can use, and what will likely be difficult for me to use.

The quality has been consistently outstanding. All of the scraps are in new or very good condition. Much of the fabric I've got in all the different scrap packs is more toward the dark end of the color spectrum, however. I didn't realize how much I've gravitated toward using lighter fabrics until I starting sorting the scraps according to what I liked most. That will guide my buying choices when I go back to shop for more (probably not for a while; I've got a lot of fabric now.)

I really love the lace. The quality, the variety, the colors -- I can't say anything bad about the lace scrap pack. I definitely have a lace quilt to design next year.

I also liked the white scrap pack very much. I think white is going to be the most versatile scrap fabric for me, especially with my art quilting, as I'm planning to try eco-dyeing in 2023.

I sorted out all the different types of fabrics, and in the end I made two boxes: fabric I'll definitely use next year (left) and fabric to challenge my creativity (right). I plan to take scraps from both on a regular basis next year and see what I can make of them.

It's wonderful to be able to save these fabrics from landfills, but there's a responsibility that goes along with that. I need to make use of them. Stay tuned to see how I do.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Gifts

This is a story that starts out very sadly, so if you're depressed by the holidays you might want to skip the first part. As far back as I can remember I've dreaded the holidays. Being poor, having constant family troubles and belonging to a strict religion made that time of year always pretty unhappy. I just hunkered down and hoped to get through without being yelled at or punished because I didn't do something I was expected to do, like sit in church for hours without moving or making a sound while a priest spoke mass in Latin. Gifts were uniformly disappointing, too. My mother usually gave me dolls or socks or underwear for Christmas. I understand now as an adult that she was doing the best she could, and trying to save money at the same time, but as a kid I'd been told good children got what they wanted for Christmas. I was a pretty good kid, but while my friends received new bikes and cool toys and lots of treats from Santa, I didn't. I thought San

We Have Backsplash!

Yesterday my guy and I decided to chose this natural stone as the backsplash tiles for our new kitchen counters (which will be in the same quartz I'm holding at the bottom of the photo.) Since all the bids for installing the backsplash came in very high my guy is going to put it in himself; he's done a bit of tile work in the past, too. I swear there is nothing this guy can't do. :)

Detoxing Results

For twenty-four hours I left these five vintage cigar boxes sit with detoxing agents (baking soda, coffee grinds, dryer sheets, vinegar and Febreze) inside them to see which worked best to remove the tobacco/storage odors that came with them. I then removed the agents and did a sniff test. Before we get into the results, a reminder: none of what I do is ever meant to be expert advice, as I am certainly not an expert at anything. Follow my methods at your own risk, and please first consult an actual antique expert conservator or restorer to detox items that have value for you. Okay, let's see how my experiment worked. Baking soda (left) did nothing to remove the odors. I think if I let it sit for a longer period of time it might have done something, but for a 24-hour test it was a complete fail. Coffee grinds (right) removed 100% of the odors, and left behind definite coffee scent. I like that and think it goes very well with wood, but if you don't like the smel