Recycling and Upcycling / Dog Beds

When I started quilting, I threw away tiny bits of fabric scraps. You know, these pieces

I kept bigger pieces without re-cutting them. We all know what that means; an overflowing basket with scraps. I had to attack it and started cutting into squares the size from 2 up to 5 inches as well as 1.5 inch strips, which has resulted in boxes with squares! 

This is just about half of the  squares I have cut, except one box that contains patterns (I most probably never will use!). 

By not throwing away anything from quilting, I have collected 4 (#5 is filling up) big plastic bags with tiny scraps

'Old', but still usable bed sheets, pillow cases and curtains

I made an inner pillow from old pillow cases and filled it with 5 kilos / 11 pounds (!) of scraps! 

Fill it up as much as you want and close it. I machine stitched it. Make the outer pillow the same size and close it the same way. 

Voila!

One dog bed done! 

Approved! :) 

I wonder who likes it the most though?! :) It looks like I have to make one for the cat too! 

I have made two dog beds, but haven't given it to them yet. Both dogs need a shower, but I want to wait for a sunny day. It's 'winter' here now and meteo has predicted showers and wind today, so I'll have to wait for better weather. 

Have you ever realized how much fabric (scraps) we throw away? I haven't put all these plastic bags on the scale, but I used two of the bags and they were 10 kilos (22 pounds) together - I have used 5 kilos (11 pounds) in each dog bed. If you know the weight of 1 yard fabric........... Well, I think you can easily do the math! :) 

WIP's and a couple of finishes

I was supposed to finish the table topper AND runner from my previous post... 

I did finish the table topper, but not the runner. I had such problems with the thread tension so I just put it away. 

I finally hemmed the coffee table runner

Since my previous post, I've started a new project; log cabin blocks! I bought these fabrics at the end of last year, just because they are so beautiful! Purple has always been outside my comfort zone, but I fell in love with these fabrics. So far I have 8 blocks and I will definitely need more fabric to finish up the quilt. 

Old jeans from a friend and cloth rice bags from Pakistan,
this is going to be an upcycled grocery bag. I just have to pull out some more jeans from a box... 

Working on a Christmas custom order; 4 placemats

Yesterday I was cleaning part of the sewing / studio, where I have most of my quilting fabrics, books, magazines etc. I have a huge buffet that is filled to the brim and 'of course' some containers stored on the floor - to hubby's despair - lol. After the cleaning yesterday I felt a little bit lazy today and just wanted to go through some of the containers. Started with a basket I thought contained of things to be thrown... Wrong! Well, it was things at the top that was ready for the bin and what else did I find? Bits and pieces of fabrics from projects that were finished at least 2-3 years ago and lots of HST's!  I started to sort it out and now I have a nice little heap to be cut into 2, 2.5 and 4 inch squares and 1.5 inch strips. There are some orphan as well as error blocks too, which I'm going to re-cut and I will use most of this in a super-scrappy quilt... one sunny day! :) 

HAPPY EASTER SUNDAY!