Home » Home & Style » Fabric Crafts » Reconstituted Fabric

Reconstituted Fabric

© Marion

Just what do you do with all those small bits of fabric that you end up after making yourself a shirt, a bag, or a soft toy? Do you have some sort of system whereby you decide a piece must be a certain size or it gets thrown away? Do you keep every tiny scrap in the hope that one day it'll turn out to be just the piece you need? Do you cut them up into even smaller pieces and use them as stuffing?

While pieces of a certain size can be trimmed to a patchwork template, there are always pieces that won't fit a template, particularly long thin strips. So what's a sewer to do?

Well, how about simply stitching them together? Just take any two pieces, sew them together on the longest edge, and trim off any excess. There's no need to worry about sewing yourself into difficult shapes, just be ruthless with your scissors and trim off any awkward angles and resew the cutoff bits onto another edge. What you've just created is your own, unique piece of fabric to use for a new project.

Whether you sew your scraps together randomly or construct several colour-coordinated pieces is up to you. The latter would, for example, make a great border for a crazy patchwork; or a border for a patchwork built from the fabric the scraps came from.

If you cut templates from your scraps, alternate these with a plain fabric for the best effect; white will probably show off your reconstituted fabric the best.

If you are thinking of cutting templates from your reconstituted fabric, you could sew your scraps together into roughly the shape and size you're after, then trim your block, sew the scrap pieces together again, starting the process over.

For me the best things about making my own fabric this way are the pleasure of seeing favourite bits of fabric in all sorts of places and the satisfaction of hardly ever throwing away a bit of fabric!