Category Archives: creative recycling

Slow Stitch Skirt

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Having done two fairly random slow stitched pieces then turned them into useful objects, I was ready to make something more intentional. I had lots of ideas to choose from. What I settled on was a skirt with a slow stitched front. The base fabric will be black and the scraps sewed onto it will be colourful so the result looks a bit like stained glass. Because it’ll be washed in the machine, I’m folding in the edges of the scraps.

I didn’t want to wrangle a large piece of fabric so I’m doing it in strips to be sewn together later. The strips would be indifferent colours, with red at the bottom then purple, blue, aqua and green in turn to the waist.

My small stash of fabric scraps wasn’t going to accommodate this, so I began sourcing more. First from a friend, who supplied most of what I needed from her bountiful stash. Then by buying scrap packs at the Craft & Quilt Show, and at the Embroiderer’s Guild destash sale. I also ordered a random scrap bundle from a quilting shop but the colours were either too muted or not the hues I’m looking for.

I didn’t want the skirt to be as thick and poofy as a quilt so I’m using strips of leftover flannelette from making quilts instead of batting. For the thread I’m using up more mercerised cotton thrums, but where I don’t have the right colours I’m using perle cotton embroidery thread as well. I really like the soft shine of mercerised cotton, and enjoying stitching in saturated colour.

Cats in Squares Quilt

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This was the last quilt to be top-stitched and bound, and though it was small I struggled a bit with it. Mostly in deciding how I wanted to top-stitch it. First I tried hand quilting in white sewing thread, but I couldn’t see what I was doing. Also, I’d started slow-stitching by then and didn’t want a less interesting hand-stitching project taking up all my hand work time.

Then I sewed a wood-grain-like pattern using wavy lines and the rainbow thread. At first I tried treating the cat squares like knots to be avoided, but that looked terrible. Fortunately, I’d used a longer stitch length so it was easy to unpick the bits I didn’t like. I continued with just the wavy pattern. Then bound the edges and it was done.

With all the Summer of Quilts quilts done, I’m free to make another. But it won’t be flannelette. Kwandi, or something with sashiko panels, appeals. I’m heading for the Quilt and Craft fair soon so maybe it will inspire something. Or maybe I’ll sew more clothes and non-patchworky homewares. Or maybe I’ll be sucked into a completely different craft.

Another Stitched Thing

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Before I’d finished the first slow stitching piece I had the next one ready and waiting, but while I worked on the second piece my thoughts wandered down a different path: all the different applications I could put this stitching thing to. Which seems like planning, which is not in the spirit of slow stitching, and yet seems like exploring wherever inspiration takes me, which does.

I did a lot of exploring in the second piece.

When it was done, a bit of contemplation and experimental folding happened before I knew what it wanted to become. That, it turned out, was a zippered bag, with a quilted corduroy stripe at the bottom and as a tab at the side. I love it!

My favourite part of the stitching is this bit:

The stitch might be called ‘feather stitch’ in the little embroidery book I keep by my armchair, but linked up and meandering into a larger mass it looks like the pattern formed by streams joining to form every larger rivers, or the expanding growth form of tree branches. The stitched area has a satisfying texture not unlike lines of running stitch, but more fun to sew.

I’m also enjoying french knots more now I have the hang of them. And chain stitch, despite not really liking making daisies. I’ve always liked blanket stitch. But not so much the stem stitch I used for the spirals, which I kept having to unpick and redo because they looked too wonky.

Even More Dishcloths

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So I ran out of the new supplemental warp.

I got three dishcloths out of it.

But there was still some base warp on the Jane loom. So I took another batch of thrums from the collection and tied a new supplemental warp to the ends of the old one so I could draw it through the heddles rather than rethreading them. This was a bit fussy, but relatively quick since it didn’t involve many warp ends. My main concern was the knots coming undone as I drew them through the heddles. I looked around for some kind of fabric stiffener or glue and found the spray bottle of starch I’d bought for stabilising quilt tops. It did the trick, and I’m now weaving dishcloths with two shades of mid-blue patterning.

Using up thrums and adding new colours is making these dishcloths interesting to weave, but I am looking forward to getting the loom cleared. Especially because I found a tutorial for zokin (dishcloths made from old fabric stitched with sashiko) which, while all done by hand and so not particularly fast, are probably a LOT faster to make than weaving (and sewing) them. And will be an excellent way to use up scrap fabric and yet more thrums.

A New Thing

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Of course, trying to finish UFO and organise my stuff is the perfect time to try a new hobby, but in retrospect, it was doing those things that led to the hobby-trying.

Because of thrums.

This is after culling and using maybe a third.

I have quite a lot of them, and recently I’ve tested a few new ways to use them up. I tried combing some wool thrums into fluff to spin new yarn out of, but it was too much like hard work and the yarn it made was yucky. Then I made some wool thrum tassels on a day when only a mostly brainless task would do, and I was pretty happy with the result. They’ll be used as decorations at my next party thing.

These will be party decorations.

Then I realised that the perle cotton and 16/2 cotton thrums would make excellent thread for slow stitching pieces.

Ah. Slow Stitching. A woman I met at a car thing a few months ago enthused about it, and of course I’d seen examples on Instagram and YouTube. With those thrums sitting there needing a purpose, I did a bit of research, brought out my new ‘scrap fabric’ tub and started playing. I made a piece out of blue and green offcuts sewn with natural white cotton thrums, that became a small drawstring bag.

Then I started on a piece in red shades stitched with yellow, green and salmon pink perle cotton thrums.

And somehow I managed to buy a book on the subject. And some little packets of fabric scraps I found at an op shop.

I’m not sure where this is going, but that’s kind of the point. This is very much a journey-more-important-than-destination pastime. The fact is, though, that’s not very me. However, I am able to enjoy the lack of end purpose if I tell myself that I don’t have to decide what the thing I’m making will become until I’m done stitching. As with most new hobbies, the first things I made are more about learning and practising. I may grow more intentional in my choices, but for now… this’ll do.

The Art Quilt

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When the Summer of Quilts ended I was left with a handful of quilts that still needed topstitching and binding. Not wanting them to languish in a tub somewhere, but needing a break from quilt-making, I decided to finish one a month. I think I’m on track. I’ll just check…

In fact, I’m ahead! I finished the Blue Quilt in March, the Purple Quilt in April and I seem to have forgotten to blog about the Bookcase Quilt in May. I finished another one this month but won’t be posting about it until the recipient’s birthday has passed. What I can post about is the other quilt I finished in June: the Art Quilt.

I decided to use serpentine stitch on my machine again in the sections of plain colour, in a matching shade. Going around the squares was fun and somehow the start and end of the stitching always met, or came close. I like how every turn happens in a different part of the wave so you get a different ‘kink’ each time. The threads needed to be tied and hand-sewn into the batting because I wasn’t sure if I could back tack using serpentine stitch. Really, I should have just done a test – it would have saved a lot of work.

It would have been fine to leave the quilt as it was at this point, but the gaps between stitching seemed a bit wide to me. I decided to do more top-stitching, this time sewing around the multicoloured squares with multicoloured thread in straight stitch. Then I did a bit of thread ‘scribble’ in the white centres, which I love. I’d wanted to do that with fabric pens or crayons, but didn’t like the results when I tested them on scrap fabric, so I’d left them unadorned.

There’s just one quilt left to finish now. Only when it’s done am I free to make another quilt. Will I? Maybe. There’s enough flannelette left to make one, possibly two, small quilts. I’m also intrigued by the kawandi quilting technique.

But I am well stocked with quilts now, so maybe I’ll also impose a rule on not making more quilts until I’ve found homes for some of the ones I already have.

Colour-blocked Corduroy Jacket

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Or is it a shirt? I guess it’s a ‘shacket’, as it works as either.

It felt like I had a lot left to do when I tackled the next stage, since the sewing up is the main part of garment construction. But in truth, it was no more than an easy day’s work. I took breaks for cuppas and lunch, and one to write the bulk of this post before tackling the buttonholes.

This was a ‘just for the fun of it’ project. Though it was done in the spirit of using up fabric, the main aim was to play with colour-blocking. I bought fabric for it and have enough of five of the six kinds to put to other uses, though not for any full garment.

What’s next? Well, some sewing thread I ordered for topstitching a quilt back in January has finally arrived, so that might be next. Or perhaps I’ll fix the wool skirt that got shrunk last year first.

Cutting the Cord

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I was all ready to start cutting out fabric for the patchwork corduroy shirt when we went away for a long weekend. When I got back I was tired and bound mess up the task and then I got into an organising and culling state of mine. It wasn’t until two weeks later that I returned to the project.

The catalyst, I suspect, was going to a second hand and vintage sale looking for nice pants and long skirts and not finding any. That sparked some ideas, both of garments and of creative challenges I could set myself, and the next day I was back at the cutting table.

There were a lot of pieces to cut. Six colours and textures of corduroy. It took me most of a morning and then I really needed a mental break so we went for a walk then for various reasons I was drawn away from the sewing room again.

I didn’t get back to it until the following weekend, when I sewed it all into pattern pieces and got the pockets and front yokes attached. I’m hoping to make more progress this weekend, but I’m not in a hurry. It’s nice to sew at a relaxed pace.

Cord on Bleu

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This project began with two remnants of corduroy in my stash. One a navy-based floral pin cord with light blue, white and pink in the pattern, the other a plain burgundy with a quite broad cord texture. I searched online for corduroy colour blocking and up came pics of men’s shirts.

Which I like the look of. The colours and pattern I’m going to use are going to be different, of course. The pattern I’m going to use is one I traced from an old corduroy shirt, but adding pockets and leaving out the waist shaping. The colours are taken from the navy floral fabric: pink, a dusty light blue, a light burgundy, the dark burgundy leftovers from my stash and – because I wanted more than one patterned fabric – a mid-tone aqua-blue with little flowers and mushrooms.

Texture is going to be another factor. The two batches of leftover corduroy are a fine pin cord and an unusually broad cord, so I figured I’d embrace textural difference and have a variety of cord widths. The corduroy I bought to go with them are a mix of medium and fine cord.

I did some sketching…

The first two versions were deliberately riffing off the men’s shirts to see what I liked and disliked about the blocking and colour placement. I really didn’t like it having one dark and one light breast pocket – that’s going to matter more on a woman than a man. I also preferred seam lines going along the arms rather than around them. The third sketch is my own choice of seam lines and colour placement, and I like it much better. The arrangement of colours seems more balanced.

The next step was to tweak the front and work out an arrangement for the back.

Once I was satisfied with that, I spent an afternoon making a tracing of the main pieces of the pattern and creating pieces for the pockets. Then I drew design lines on the front, back, and sleeve, and traced off a pattern piece for each block, adding 1cm seam allowance. Why go to all that trouble? I just knew that if I simply cut up the front, back and sleeve, I’d forget to add seam allowance later. And I’d have had to make two more copies of the front and sleeves, since the pattern isn’t the same on each.

Then I went alway for a long weekend, so there was a bit of gap between making the pattern and making the garment. The latter will have to wait for another post.

In the Navy

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It was time to change the thread on the overlocker again, and tackle the navy knit fabric leftovers. They consisted of three kinds: enough plain to make a skivvy, enough gum nut print to make two sleeves or some side panels, and a small amount of a thinner striped knit that might work with the others if I used it like the gauze in the recent t-shirts.

I drew up some options and worked out there was only one combo where I got two garments out of the fabric and didn’t need to draft a new variation on the patterns I’m using. The first was a t-shirt with the striped fabric as puffed sleeves and neckband, the second was a skivvy with the gumnut fabric for arms and collar.

However… the day I started cutting out I didn’t realise I was too tired to be sewing until I’d cut out the plain navy fronts and backs at 90 degrees to the grain. Oops. I decided to go ahead and make the t-shirt anyway.

While it looks good and is wearable, the stretch being so generous along the length of the body is a mistake I don’t want to repeat, so I decided to abandon making the gumnut skivvy.

At that point I decided I was done sewing stretch. I was starting to feel a bit over it anyway. Most of the knit fabric in my stash had been sewn up. Aside from a small amount of leftovers, I had one recently-purchased batch of fabric that might make a dress, and I wasn’t in the mood for tackling a dress.

So what next? Well, I’m still enamoured of colour blocking. I have two kinds of corduroy in the stash and an idea I want to pursue, so I’m thinking it’s time for a projects done purely for fun.