Craft all the things!
Stash busting projects! One down, some number to go...
I came to the realization a couple weekends ago that I have an entire sotrage bin of fabrics. Those can be broken into two sections:
Stuff I have projects planned for
Stuff I have no plans for
Not pictured: The bin I had forgot about that had felt and fleece left over from a project three or more years ago.
Notice how the the "no plans for" is much larger? Most of them are fat quarters and bolt ends I picked up because they are cute, or extra yardage that I had from other projects I've finished.
After trying to find projects that would all use the scraps, thus justifying saving them, I decided it was time to look for smaller projects, that could use partials of various things. Without having to buy anything more.
I spent about three hours scouring the internet, and then found this sew along from 2011. Ditching the napkins, and after looking at the cuts, I was able to get all the cuts needed from one fat quarter. And one set of 4 fat quarters will make 4 placemats.
These are the four fabrics I went with for the placemats:
My colour guide:
This is about the time is clicked that H was supposed to be some other fabric, but I couldn't find a contrasting fabric to go with, so I adjusted the colour plan slightly to work out of the cut fat quarters.
The final products:
Forgive the bad lighting, it was late at night when I finished.
All in all, I ended up using:
- 8 fat quarters (I had two of each colour)
- 40" of fabric cut into 2.5" WOF strips for the binding (roughly 65" of binding per placemat)
- 60" of fabric for the backing (I did three 20" strips, then subdivided those into three 14.5" pieces)
- 60" of fuseable interfacing (I could only get 2 cuts from the width of the interfacing regardless of how I rotated the backing pieces).
I'm learning that fabric stash is less useful than yarn stash. It's easier to find a project for a single skein of something than a few fat quarters.














Those place mats turned out great!
Do you like making smaller items like coin purses or phone sleeves? Wonder if those would clear out extra fat quarters.
Those are so lovely! I really like the colors you chose.
Looks awesome, great work on the place mats! I have a fabric stash and a lot of 'hmmm' involved with it. Have you ever seen this site? I use bits for this:
http://www.ifoundaquiltedheart.com/
This is such a cute idea!!
holy crap that is a lot of cloth.
Thus the need to pair down a tad :)
Pffft. That's a mere 'sweet stash'. I'll show everyone my yarn stash someday.
When I get the lens from the Hubble Telescope.
haha :)
My yarn stash is 4 bins big, sorted by weight. That's a whole other story though.
What a good way to use leftover fabric!
Wow, that's incredible!
I love this! I love seeing people's crafting stashes btw. You have a lot of beautiful fabric!