I worked in
a place where Cotton scraps (ends) of fabric (WOF) were being thrown in the
garbage. It was a normal thing to do, so when I saw them, I asked if it was ok
to take them home, a young girl in particular looked at me in a strange way and
asked what I would do with them. I said I'll
show you one day. From there on, she was my biggest advocate for gathering
these scraps in a plastic bag under the counter. It really didn’t take
long for me to get enough together for what I had in mind.
I made a
6" template, and drew 1" - 2" lines on the template, cut those
into the strips, then wrote the measurement of each strip - as to what I would
need to cover that template with a strip of fabric.... and my
"pattern" was born.
I had two
constants in the blocks. #1- The center strip needed to be "black" or
a black-ish coloured fabric. I had quite a lot of "blacks" in my
stash that I could use. In particular a good amount of a zebra print fabric,
which was perfect for what I needed .#2- the corner pieces needed to be a
turquoise-ish colour. I had a very
little amount of turquoise in my stash, so I did buy a (sort of) bluish tone
fabric which I placed in the corner pieces.
Now, many
people would think I'm crazy, I LOVE the challenge of doing a project like this
one. I LOVE it!!! I didn’t use any kind
of paper piecing, just sewed strips together until I had enough to cover the
6" template. Then I trimmed them, making sure the "black" strip
was IN the center.
Once on the
design wall, I decided how I was going to place the 6" squares, and which
pattern I wanted to use. I chose the X kind of pattern, placed all the pieces
in place, numbered them and sewed them all together in a 10 blocks by 14 blocks,
pattern. There were 11 strips in each block (and about 6 blocks that needed a
strip "patched together), which made a total of 1540 strips +?6 or so!!
The backing
is another story. I was away on vacation, and when I came back to work this
same young girl asked if I was interested in this "end of bolt" piece
of fabric. It had been marked down to $3. (it was cotton). Um..YES I was
interested in it. Turned out to be just
over 4 meters of fabric... well, you
know I had a place for it right? Not quite enough to cover the whole back, so I
dug out some of the leftover WOF "garbage" pieces, and sewed them
together to make a strip of strips for the middle of the backing. Bingo!!
It worked!
Two things
surprised me and I only saw them when it was all finished, and hanging on the
clothesline (with brown grass, & snow covered background & a touch of
wind) and that was how the zebra print fabric makes a bit of a shimmery (almost
kaleidoscope) look, and how the black centers with the bluish corners, gives it
a 3-D look. Interesting!!!
When it was
all finished, I took it to work to show it to the co workers, the young girl
asked, is this from all those garbage pieces? Yep!! She was so amazed!! I said
to her, this was great fun for me, and for you, it was meant to be a learning
thing about garbage, and how you can make something from nothing. So, fold it up, put it in the bag, take it
home and enjoy its comfort. To say the least, she was in shock. Perfect!!!
Mission accomplished!!