From time to time we spend a few days in Connecticut visiting with my in-laws and Charlie's sister and her family. Whenever we go, I bring some sort of project with me. It's always a tedious project I've been avoiding, something I would never get around to doing at home. But there, in the evening after our kids and their cousins have gone to bed, when the adults are all sitting around watching TV, I bring out my project and I'm happy to have something to do with my hands.
One time I brought a huge stack of recipes clipped from magazines that needed to be sorted and pasted into my recipe notebook. Another time it was a massive tangle of embroidery floss which, over the course of a four day Thanksgiving visit, was detangled, sorted by color, and wrapped around floss bobbins all neat and tidy. One time I divided all my wool felt scraps by color, and last summer I sorted all my buttons by shape, color and size. It's ultra satisfying to come home with neatness when you had left with a mess.
We spent Memorial Day weekend this year in Connecticut and after long days at the beach with the kids I settled down to sort all my scraps of quilting cotton. I brought two huge bags of unsorted scraps with me. Nearly seven years worth of scraps, some of them vintage treasures and others just pretty bits that I've saved forever.
I endured quite a bit of jibing for saving so many small pieces of fabric and many inquiries as to whether I ever throw anything away. But after three evenings in front of the TV I had 12 color-sorted bags of cotton scraps to pack in the car when it was time to head home. And the bags looked so lovely all lined up in a row in rainbow order.
There are a lot of wonderful things you can do with leftover scraps of fabric. I pulled together this list of free tutorials from around the crafty blogosphere for lovely, quick and pretty projects to make with fabric scraps. And this is only the beginning. Fabric scraps for perfect for so many creative projects.
1. triangular log cabin pincushion
3. bobby pins
4. star toy
5. hair bows
6. sparkle eggs
7. thumb tacks
8. ABC magnets
9. pot holders
I've put my 12 scrap bags in my shop today, for $4 a piece. Inside each one is a true assortment of fabric treasures. It's always fun to get a bag of someone else's fabrics. If you get one of these I'm sure you'lll find treasures in there that will inspire you to make something lovely.