A little over two years ago, I was sick for quite awhile with an awful sinus problem. I didn’t have much energy, so to prevent too much boredom I looked for some simple tasks to do. First I sorted all my small fabric scraps by color and organized them into containers. While doing that, I thought it would be fun to challenge myself to see how small a fabric scrap could get before I couldn’t make something out of it. I wanted to upgrade my hand-sewing skills and learn the rudiments of piecing for quilt making.
I started sewing fabric pieces into strips to combine into a scrap quilt later, after seeing some beautiful examples on Pinterest. As I accumulated strips, I combined them with other leftover fabrics such as a jean pocket, a waistband from some corduroy pants, a seam from blue jeans, old clothing tags, ribbon, binding strips, selvage pieces and some rather primitive embroidered panels I made a long time ago for use on a tote bag which has since been retired.
Over the last couple of years, every once in awhile I’d add a little bit more on. Then I finished it with blanket seam binding from JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts where I taught classes in hand sewing, general crafts and jewelry making before the pandemic.
Following are some close-ups of sections of the quilt.
At the top is part of a waistband from some Lime Green corduroy pants.Here is the top seen a little closer.Here is a close-up of some stitching. I had some fun adding on some pieces with raw edges and treating some of my stitches like I was drawing on abstract collages in one of my art journals.On some sections I used the pattern on the fabric as inspiration for how to do the quilting stitching. There are fabrics in this section from one of my old sheets and even a couple of pieces that I printed on with rubber stamps of my own design.Here is the pocket. The jeans they came from were not mine – I’ve had them in my fabric stash for so long I’m not sure where they came from. The light colored denim pieces tie-dyed with black are from a pair of jeans I dyed and wore in college.Here is the bottom end. There are fabrics in this section from sewn items my late Mom made in the early 1980s, some more fabric I printed and fabric from the ties and table runners from my wedding! My quilting friend Kate also gave me a lot of beautiful scraps I used in this section.
“Experimental Art Quilt #1” is for sale on Etsy. Here is a link to the listing:
I met my friend Kate in 2016 while we were both teaching craft and sewing classes at JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts in the Deer Creek Shopping Center in Maplewood. I was not a quilter when I started teaching there, nor was I an expert seamstress. I had quite a bit of experience with simple hand sewing so I was skilled enough to teach kids’ and adults’ beginner level classes in hand sewing and embroidery. I also taught jewelry, paper crafts, some flower arranging, and general crafts. The JoAnn classroom is on hiatus right now. If they ever start having classes again it might be awhile before I can do it again because of other projects – some of which I can write about on this blog and some that I can’t!
I was given some scraps and pieces of things left over from teaching to practice my skills on. The baby quilt section shown above was a remnant that some other teacher pieced as a demo. This section was cut off and discarded so I took it to practice on. I have three other quilts in progress right now – two experimental art quilts and a repair job on a vintage quilt. When I need to move up a skill level, Kate helps me out by showing me some tips and techniques. I’m working a bit on each quilt to improve my techniques as needed to finish the next steps on each. The baby quilt remnant I was given is long and narrow so I’ve decided that when I’m done quilting it, I’m going to turn it into a sleeping bag for dolls and stuffed toys.
The last steps of quilting my sleeping bag on the left, and one of Kate’s beautiful finished quilts is on the right.
I thought I was finished quilting last week, and I hand washed my quilt to clean any dirt off from my hands and get the blue washable marking pen lines off. Unfortunately, I tend to save up a bucket full of hand washable items to wash all at one time to conserve water, and I carelessly washed the quilt with some old fabric items (more about that later) that were so old I didn’t think they would bleed. Apparently they had never been washed before and they bled a little dye on four panes of this quilt. Fortunately I found some fabric in my stash to applique and re-quilt over those squares, that not only goes well with the colors, but features a terrific motif for a toy sleeping bag because of the camping theme. That gives me some more ideas for how to accessorize the sleeping bag to make it “adventure ready”! Now I’m going to like this project even better – that’s one of the life skills art and crafts are good training for – turning problems into wins!
My friend Kate, who is a quilt expert, found the name of this quilt pattern in an old quilt book of hers, and gave me some repair tips too.
There are personal, regional and world-wide reasons why the last few weeks of life have been especially difficult. I’m not the only one who seeks solace in art and craft activities, especially ones that bring back warm memories of cozy winter afternoons spent with my family making things. There is nothing better on a cold wintry day.
It’s been nice snuggling under the old family quilt my mother in law gave us recently. It was made in the 1930s by my husband’s grandmother and friends. I was given it in the hope I’d make something from it, since it has a few areas of damage and I’m well known for making new things out of old things – a lifelong pursuit. I decided to repair some of the spots before it gets worse, because most of it still looks good and for now I’d prefer to use it than upcycle it if possible.
Patching damaged star points with applique.
I could have purchased fabric for repairing this quilt that matches more closely to the old fabric to disguise the repairs more, but I decided to approach this repair as adding a little of my own history to this quilt instead of trying to do a museum quality restoration. I looked in my extensive fabric stash to see how close I could approximate the colors and patterns with what I have, and decided it still looked good and I would enjoy the little differences and the memories from my fabric scraps. My Mom made me a tablecloth out of that multicolor floral print on the right in the early 1980s, and Kate gave me the blue floral scraps, for example. Every time I see the fabric I will remember them and others, that is one of the best things about quilts and quilting. This repair is very satisfying to work on because I’m adding memories and functionality as I go.
Old quilt my Dad gave me, being washed in the bathtub on the left and after washing on the right.
My Dad recently went through some things in his basement, and he had an extra quilt that someone gave him so he passed it on to me to clean and repair. It doesn’t have any holes that go all the way through and very few torn patches so we’re using this one until the other repair is finished, then I’ll swap them out and repair the second one. I really get a kick out of these colors and patterns. They look to me like they are from the late 1940s or early 1950s.
I’ve been putting my toe in the water of learning quilting over the last two or three years. I have two art quilts in progress and one baby quilt. Kate is giving me tips as I need them. Repairing quilts is a great way to increase my skills along the way.
In the above photo are some stuffed animals and little pillows I made in the 1970s when I was around the ages of 8-12. The rooster on the right was made from a commercial pattern that my Mom had in her stash and I think I still have it. The others were made by me from my own patterns – I’m not sure about the frog though. That one seems a lot more advanced than the others. It even has wire in it to make it poseable. Well, it probably is mine – it’s not symmetrical and I cut a hole in the back of the head to insert the wire and sewed it back up again, so that was probably an afterthought. The items on the right were recently extricated from my Dad’s basement and I had completely forgotten about most of them. I pretty much liked a lot of the same animals then as I like now – sea life, fish, invertebrates, birds, frogs! I loved little pillows with pockets, then and now! I felt very satisfied when I made these, and I love looking at them now for the memories of where those fabrics came from and how much fun I had. Maybe I’ll make some of these into patterns for kids – that’s one way to make sure a kid can do it! I know there are people who will make kid’s drawings into things, including softies. That’s a fantastic idea I think! I think I’d enjoy teaching kids how to make patterns from their drawings. I’ve loved making patterns since I was young too, though I enjoy following someone else’s from time to time – it rests the brain a little bit!
In 2019 I made the above softies for a niece and nephews. They were both modified from other designs I saw online. The chickens have a little pocket for hiding things under the wing, that’s one of the things I added because I love pockets so much. The monster bunny has a stomach pocket too though I ran out of time to embroider a stomach and intestines on it. My original vision of the monster rabbit also had some other ideas that got put aside as I was running out of time to get it done, but if I make another one I could give them another try. I made a deliberate choice to use crazy mixes of scrap fabric in order to pass on some of my fabric memories to them – even though they don’t know what most of them are, it feels satisfying somehow! I can still enjoy the memories looking at these pictures!
Found another one! Fabric snake I made when I was somewhere in the age range of 8-12.
In this project you can practice your skills in fabric painting, fabric coloring and applique. I had a lot of fun with my stashes of fabric, trim, buttons and threads to create different blends of colors and textures. I used blank burlap bags and fabric remnants to make festive and reusable containers for small holiday gifts of different kinds. I wrote this last year and it didn’t get published by Canvas Corp at that time because they got sold to another company and disbanded their Creative Crew that I was on. It might seem a little early for Christmas projects but if you make your Christmas gifts it’s really not unreasonable to start working on them now. Also you can use the same techniques with different themes to fit the season. I had a ton of fun making these. Enjoy!
Materials
Printed canvas sheets
Burlap wine sacks
Burlap shoulder bags
Assorted burlap, trim and other fabric remnants
Gold fabric paint
Fabric markers
Assorted sewing and embroidery thread including gold metallic
Clean scrap paper
Buttons (optional)
Tools
Small paint brush
Fabric scissors
Tape
Scrap cardboard
Pins
Sewing and embroidery needles
Iron and ironing board
Instructions
Select images from printed canvas sheets by Canvas Corp and cut around them with fabric scissors. Tape an assortment of cutouts to a piece of scrap chipboard or cardboard. Outline the images with gold fabric paint. Let dry, and heat set the paint with an iron if necessary. Place the fabric pieces between two pieces of clean scrap paper to protect the iron and ironing board from paint and ink.
Color the images with fabric markers, and heat set if necessary. The particular fabric markers I used did not require heat setting.
Lay out the burlap blanks that you are going to use on a work surface. For my samples I used Canvas Corp wine bag and tote bag blanks. I also had some remnants of burlap that I decided to cut into rectangles to make into little Christmas themed door hangers with pockets that could be used as ornaments or to hold object such as greenery or small gifts. These burlap remnants had a very loose weave so I backed them with green fabric pieces. Match up your decorated printed canvas cutouts with a burlap bag or piece and go through your fabric and trim stash to find scraps that look good layered behind the printed canvas pieces. Pin the trim and fabric remnants together with the printed canvas pieces on top. You might want to leave some fabric edges raw or hem them for slightly different looks. You can explore a lot of design options by working on several pieces at a time. Pin your printed canvas piece on top of the fabric and trim arrangements. Don’t pin the canvas/trim/fabric assemblies to the bags yet – some of the sewing will be easier to do before the assemblies are attached to the bags. Here are a couple of burlap wine bags with pinned assemblages ready to be sewn…
…plus a couple of burlap shoulder bag examples…
…and some rectangles that will become door hangers with the addition of a loop of braided trim for hanging.
Sew around each printed canvas cutout with gold embroidery thread. Secure the trim pieces with embroidery thread in a complementary color. If you want to, add a few buttons or other embellishments as accents. Once all the layers on your assemblage are sewn together, pin the assemblage to the front of your bag and sew in place. You are done!
I’ve been wanting to try reverse applique for a long time. I also like piecing together fabric scraps to see what I can make with them. I decided that pieced fabric would be interesting to sew behind the front of an apron with a large Easter Egg shaped cutout on the front. Here is how I did it.
First I gathered together some fabric scraps. I picked out pink, blue and green pastels and decided to add some navy blue and red to the mix also. Why add those colors to the traditional Easter pastels? Right before I started sewing this apron, I stayed for the weekend at a home with a great art collection that included several prints by my all-time favorite artist, Alexander Calder. One of the things he was known for was the use of primary colors with black. Here is a composite of some selections from this collection, with a couple of other artists’ works (Joan Miró and Roy Lichtenstein) thrown in that use similar color schemes.
You never know where inspiration is going to come from!
Here is some of my piecing shown from the back.
I dyed a pre-made blank canvas apron a very light citron color with Procion dye and I draped my piecing over it to check and see if the colors are ok together. To the front of the pieced section I sewed some translucent yellow trim and a piece of pastel rainbow rick-rack to tie the colors together.
Next I ironed a stabilizer to the back of the pieced section then made a paper egg template. I cut out a pieced fabric egg shape with about a 3/4 inch margin all around.
I pinned the paper egg template to the front of the apron and taped the apron to a window so that I could use the light to line up the fabric piece behind the apron. I sewed all around the egg with dark blue embroidery thread then cut out the egg shape from the front to exposed the pieced section.
The finishing touch on the apron was to sew a row of rick-rack to the top edge of the pockets.
As you can see, I made more pieced fabric than I needed just for this apron. That’s because I have another idea for using more of it. What will it be? I have a pretty wild idea. If it turns out well you’ll see it here on this blog someday!
Three softie hanging hearts made from upcycled fabric
While getting ready for my wedding last summer, I took apart the wedding dresses and veils used by my grandmother, Edith Linkul, and my Mom, Lois Hasenfratz. Neither dress fit me or was in good enough condition to wear as is, but I got a lot of usable fabric, lace and trimmings from these pieces. I started several of these stuffed hearts with ribbon hangers to give to people who helped out with our wedding for Christmas. I didn’t get them done in time for Christmas. I may revive this idea for next Christmas. In the meantime, I finished a few of them off in honor of Valentine’s Day.
All three of the hearts pictured here started out by cutting satin hearts from my grandmother’s wedding dress. I layered netting from my grandmother’s veil on two of them and leftover tulle from my veil on the other. I embellished all three hearts with lace from my Mom’s dress, champagne color faux pearl beads that came from an old necklace of my Mom’s, and small gold colored and clear glass beads. The wide piece of hanging ribbon that suspends the heart on the left came from my grandmother’s veil.
I was really glad when I got all the accessories finished that I made for my wedding, but I wasn’t ready to stop making things from the old and new materials I had amassed for wedding projects. As long as I have wedding supplies left in my stash, I’m sure these materials will keep popping up in various projects! What a great way to remember the happiest day of my life and pay tribute to my Mom and grandmother! (I need more practice getting the heart shapes more symmetrical too as you can see.)
Yesterday was my two month anniversary of getting married! I’ve been really busy with moving my studio, plants and personal effects and before that working on wedding projects so I’m a bit behind on writing new blog posts and coming up with new projects. However here are a couple of new articles about me on the Canvas Corp Brands blog that you might enjoy:
Two of the four table runners that I made for my wedding reception.
The following article was written before the wedding so it makes it sound like the wedding is coming up but it was really in August. The instructions are still good though!
Hand sewn-canvas nautical flag banners with my (former) initials CMH
One of my many DIY wedding projects was to make banners displaying Tom’s and my initials in nautical flag symbols. I made two sets, one with my (former) initials and one with his. To make them I dyed canvas flag blanks from Canvas Corp a lime green background color then appliqued fabric and felt on them by hand sewing with embroidery thread.
I inherited the wedding dresses of my Mother and Grandmother but neither was in a condition to wear for my upcoming wedding, nor did either dress fit me anyway. I decided to take them apart to use what decorations and fabric pieces that I could for the new dress I’m having made and for accessories. The first accessory to be completed is this ring bearer pillow.
The satin flower on top of the bow was one of two that were on my Grandmother’s dress. One had been sewn to each shoulder. The large satin bow had been on my Mom’s dress where the train was attached to the back. I dyed the bow and some of the fabric from my Mom’s dress a light lime green color with Procion MX dye. Lime green is my favorite color and will feature prominently in the festivities along with coral, navy and white.
I sewed a lacy section from Mom’s train to the front of the pillow and embellished it with glass and faux pearl beads. As I sewed on the bow assembly, I added some ribbon for tying the rings on. I spent $0.00 making this because I already had all the supplies I used on hand. I’m very pleased with the results!
A pillow front decorated with fabric selvage pieces.
Yes, I hand-sewed all those selvage pieces to the front of a blank canvas pillow cover. It’s the third one I did, and I’m in the middle of a fourth one now. Hand-sewing is something I love to do to relax. When I don’t have anything specific to make but I’m in the mood to sew, adding another strip or two is a great soothing activity for me.
