When I Was Normal

Back when I was normal, I didn't have any trouble throwing away fabric trash. Anything that was less than three quarters of an inch was not worth saving, since all the fabric would be hidden in the seam allowance and you wouldn't be able to see it. It would just result in a bulky seam and no benefit. Selvedges are bad for quilts so they get thrown away. Those crooked little pieces you get when straightening out the fabric for the first cut. Clearly that is all trash.

 But then I started the circle quilt and needed a tiny scrap to make a circle, and decided it was better to use one that was from a cutting of a project I was already working on.  I started saving these in this tiny bowl that is smaller than a cereal bowl so I wouldn't have to dig through the trash for these cuttings. Once that bowl gets full, it is time to use it or lose it.

Since I have been working on cleaning the sewing room, I have noticed how many fabric scrap boxes I have (4! Definitely time to start a truly scrap project!).  I convinced myself that it was time to throw away the cuttings since there was plenty of other perfectly good, reasonable, fabric available in the house.

I decided to throw away my cuttings from my bowl.   But first I settled down to sew down the rest of the binding of the Adinkra quilt. And watch some YouTube videos. These came up on their own. I swear I didn't choose them.



So this one says to take the cuttings and make a ribbon out of snippets. In this video, she takes a base and sews some snippets on it. I've sen others that add a lot more stuff, and others who sew snippets together to make the fabric instead of adding to a base. This one was my favorite since it was simple.

People have made and traded snippet rolls, and many of them are chock full of laces and embellishments.  These newly made ribbons can be used for wrapping presents, embellishing art quilts or art journals or just hang for decoration.  You can also take them apart and use parts you like into other projects.

There are some patterns for a snippet quilt online too. Some of them call for sewing in snippets while others call for raw edge applique.



And this one says you can use your snippets to make a binding. Who knew!?

So yesterday I made a snippet ribbon. I tea dyed the base fabric and added some snippets, blues and greens mostly to keep it coherent. I also added some other embellishments like ribbons so it doesn't look trashy.  I think I need to sew down some of the dimensional pieces and add more stamping. It is hard to show since it is long and the lighting is bad, but it was fun to make. I think I can throw away the contents of my trash bowl and start again with new trash.