Remember that pack of scraps I picked up at my sewing group in June that I thought I could do something with at some point? Well that ‘some point’ turned out to be sooner than I imagined, and I’ve turned the bag of pre-cut and some pre-sewn pieces into quite an array of items.
They’re now a patchwork drawstring bag and a matching piece to wrap the bread in, a pouch (obviously!), an attempt at a fabric storage basket. Plus I’ve some plans for the smaller offcuts from that to become tiny pouches, and the rest has already been cut into the required sizes ready to become future houses in this year’s charity quilts.
And just for the sheer fun of it, I’m calling this my brown bread collection - mainly because these first two items are for just that. I’m still making my sourdough and much prefer to wrap it in a cloth than plastic.
It turned out pretty well I think - and I’ve used some of the ribbon that I picked up in the Gedling scrapstore that same month too.
For the lining of the bag I used an old tea towel, which in case you’re wondering says ‘eat your greens’. It’s been in my craft room for a while, as I knew I’d use it one day even though it was long past its best as an actual tea towel. In fact I had to do some visible mending before I could use it, as I wasn’t keen for the crumbs to fall into the lining - and I like how they’ve turned out too.
The bread cloth uses the same browns as the drawstring bag but with the addition of some of the lighter pre-cut squares, and I realised that the perfect match for the backing was some of the small patterned material left over from my mystery Block of the Month quilt, which still needs to be finished (but we’ll gloss over that!)
So now my brown bread has a smart new look, and even better it’s used things I already had.
But I wasn’t done yet.
I wanted to make use of the already sewn flying geese blocks, and to me they were screaming ‘make me into a pouch’ and so I did.
I was pleased to find the beige cherry fabric in my stash was the perfect tone to complement the outer sections, and I also had a cherry red zip in my stash.
It looks like they were made to be together doesn’t it? I’m not sure what I’ll use this for yet, but I’m sure that at some point it will be obvious what its purpose is, in the meantime I’ll admire my creation and the flying geese put together by a sewer unknown.
I still had a few pieces left though and I knew that unless I made a plan now it’s likely that they would languish in my scrap pile. I’ve been thinking about making some fabric storage boxes, but hadn’t got around to it so decided to do a smaller version with these remnants.
It didn’t quite go to plan, as I misread part of the instructions and so ended up with something half the size I initially intended - and as you can see I mis-measured one of the box corners (top left) so have a pen mark on my finished item, but I’m ok with that. I expect it’ll wash off, but even if it doesn’t that’s ok as this is destined for use in the garage to hold a pile of scrap cloths with MOH uses to clean his bike.
It was a useful learning experience, and I ended up with a useful thing so that’s good too. Which left me with these final pieces.
The boxed corners from the fabric storage box (in the centre of the picture) I plan to make into tiny pouches as I’ve found these are good for holding jewellery, and even better to slip into a present, or as a nicer way of giving cash as a present. The other pieces have already been cut into the appropriate sizes for this year’s charity quilts, so you can expect to see them in a ‘house’ at some point in the future.
Now if only I was so efficient at using everything else that comes into my craft room!