Wednesday, November 7, 2012

The remains of the blue and white stripes fabric

A while ago, I had the evening all to myself and instead of enjoying some snacks and music, I went and cleaned the storeroom. We have a little storeroom that no one can enter because it is filled to the ceiling with my stuff. It is meant to be a bomb shelter. In the event of a bomb attack, we are supposed to run and take shelter inside this little room. It's smaller than a public toilet stall. But of course no one takes the bomb shelter seriously and use it as a storeroom instead.

To my horror, I discovered a lot of fabric remnants dating back to 2007 inside the storeroom. You know you buy a yard of fabric, make a few bags and what do you do with the remnants? You put it aside thinking you'll use the remnants one day. Which rarely happens. So what happened to me was, I had a lot of these remnants which I promised myself I'll use up one day and while I was busy buying and using new stock of fabric, the older remnants kept piling up. It's getting out of control! I have them in ziplock bags, rolled up, bunched up, in bags.

After recovering from my horror, I had them washed and dried and now they are stacked up again waiting for me to use them up. Sigh.

So when I was working on the blue and white striped fabric, I decided to use up as much of the fabric as I could. Because I know what will happen if I put them aside! I feel the most successful when I can squeeze out little pouches out of remnants. Certainly it is not economical for me to spend time mulling over what to make of remnants. I think most folks who make their own products will agree with me that time is our most precious resource. Then again, I hate to have remnants lying around.

I'm very very happy to be able to squeeze 5 items out of the remnants. Yes, 5! I stuck to simple to construct items so I won't feel like I'm being frivolous with my time.


First up are 2 simple drawstring pouches. I love the polka dotted drawstrings. I sewed them from bias tape.


The smaller one turned out to fit a iPhone5! All by accident. Yes, I really should have measured.


The second drawstring pouch is slightly larger. I hope someone finds it the perfect size. Son doesn't like the fabric I used for the casing.



Always room for a zip pouch. Check out the little tape at the side. Isn't it cute?



Yep, this is my lunchtime pouch. (pattern available here) I used an actual ribbon for the drawstring. It so happened to have polka dots.


Making my Get up and go go sling bag (pattern available here) was a little harder due to the irregular pieces of fabric left.


This is the back. And I had to use a completely different blue fabric for the handle.

This is all that's left. Little bites. It would take too much effort to make anything out of the little bits. So I shall bury them in the bomb shelter. I don't feel bad at all.

Okay, I'm pretty wiped out. I can't make anything else for a while. My hand hurts. My brain is empty. I ain't sewing no more. It's over. Zero. Go on now. Nothing else to show you.

p.s. i'm excitedly following bbc's coverage of US election. Currently it's Obama 275 Romney 203. i'm not really sure how the election works but each time a state is won, it doesn't translate to 1 vote. intriguing.

37 out of 74 projects completed.

4 comments:

Chiara Z said...

I'm thinking if you ever were to need the bomb shelter you would have somewhere soft and warm with all that fabric ;)

Anonymous said...

Now you found a good way to use the measuring tape that came with your gift! Looks playful. Are you really hanging on to those scraps? I try and force myself to throw out the tiny bits, there are just too many.
regards,
Carolien

jane p said...

Carolien,

You are absolutely right. In your honour, I shall rename my "bomb shelter" "where my fabric remnants go to die". I've tried throwing fabric remnants away but caught hubs fishing them out of the bin.

Little Blue Mouse said...

Well done on using all the blue stripe fabric, there will be a bit more space for you in the event of a bomb now!
You could use the small pieces for applique.

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