A Sew Crazy Week

This past week I challenged myself to come up with and create at least 7 new items, using as much repurposed, upcycled and recycled materials as possible. There was a lot of experimenting with materials, colors and techniques. I sewed and ripped out too many seams to count. In the end I created 3 scrappy cuffs, 2 paintings, a quilted purse, a quilted wall hanging, a sweatshirt and 6 t-shirts. A couple of the shirts didn't turn out quite as planned and have joined the ranks of fabric strips waiting to be braided into a rug, coaster or embelishment. I just can't seem to throw anything away.

My post today is about the scrappy cuffs I made. A couple months ago I signed up for a quilt block exchange through the Quiltsy group on Etsy. We each made 12-strip blocks and mailed them off to be traded with other members. But, after sewing my strippy blocks, which thankfully used up soooooooo much of my scrap fabric, I was still left with little triangle strip scraps. As I was pondering what to do with this pile of seemingly useless fabric my son bombarded me with a shower of Nerf pellets followed by flinging a sweatband into the room claiming it was a bomb set to explode in 30 seconds if I didn't come play the Wii with him.

Trying to avoid being blown up I scooped up the sweatband and as I stretched it out to fling out of the room the idea of making a wrist cuff hit me, along with another Nerf dart.

Awhile ago a clothing distributor who I worked down the hall from asked if I wanted a box of unopened head and wrist sweatbands. I said I didn't think so but he said he didn't want them anymore and I could just throw them away if I didn't want them. So, they came home with me and sat in a box on a shelf until Sam found them and they became bombs, bungee straps and who know what else. So, with a few packages still left I went to work on my scrappy cuff idea.

I just started layering the little leftover triangles and stitching around and around the cuff until the sweatband was completely covered. All the stitching took the stretch right out of the sweatband making it way to big for my wrist. So, I snipped it in half, measured around my wrist and cut it to the length I wanted. Then I searched through my bucket of loose buttons, made a button hole, stitched on the button and ta-da I had a scrappy new cuff.

I was so happy with how it turned out I made two more and used up all of those leftover scraps from the strippy blocks I made.