Sustainable ideas for fabric leftovers

Some beautiful tweeds, Boucle or silk lining left?

Do you have a few centimeters of beautiful tweeds or silk fabrics left from your project? In this chapter a few examples of how to use small pieces of fabric to make beautiful and fun accessories.

Of course we know that the entire internet is already full of blogs from creative people with fantastic ideas with step-by-step guidelines to help you to make some lovely gifts for yourself or your beloved friends or family. We are not pretending to show on this website some unique projects which has not been around already.  But our ideas are unique as they are just small objects which you are able to create in order to match the jackets or the skirt.  When the jacket or the skirt is made for a client or a friend, it is a nice present as a personal "extra" and a very personal touch.  The jacket or skirt IS already something very personal, but a small gift extra, makes it even more luxurious and personal.

Apart from the fun of gratefulness when you give the little extra away, we are also very sensible for the idea of ​​being sustainable and not just throwing away expensive beautiful materials.
Tweeds, bouclé fabrics and Silk or other lining-fabrics are not always very useful to save for quilts or patchwork-projects. They are too thick, too much loose threads or silk; too delicate and difficult to match with other fabrics.

So we stick to some useful ideas to make wonderful accessories from our left-overs. If you have some ideas yourself or if you want to show your project; your wonderful bag, your beautiful laptop-cover or whatever; just send it to use and we will publish it.

About patchwork; it is possible to make lovely patchwork from fabrics as tweed and wool. Use some interfacing on the wrong side when the threads are very loose.  If you iron it, it will stay together and it will work out much better. We have created some patchwork-blankets out of tweed fabrics. The blanket will be very heavy for sure, but choosing a light-weight woolen fabric as back-fabric would be a good idea.  No inside extra fiber needed for sure....

Bouclé fabrics and silks are nice to save for small bags, make-up bags, eye glasses cases, scarfs, just some beautiful tablecloths or small cloths to use in in the wardrobe closet. It is nice to work with bindings or to create the fringes.
Speaking about fringes;  bouclé fabrics are also very nice to save for fringes-projects. You you can tear the fabric apart and make braids with the threads or or cut them into narrow strips, sew them and unravel them. Beautiful examples are explained in the book:  Making Designers Trims by Claire Schaeffer.

Whatever you decide to do: 
beautiful and expensive fabrics are worth to save or to up-use for other projects. Cheap and fabrics you do not like, are perfect to save for projects when you need interfacings to bulk the fabric or just to practise a sewing technique. If you save fabrics; be sure they are be sure that they are well preserved so they will not stink, mold or moths are ruining the fabrics.
If you buy second-hand fabrics;  be carefull they are stored right.  It is not very nice to buy fabrics from people who smoke in their studio's or galleries.  The smell will not disappear....

Last but not least:
Trade or give fabrics to others.  We have received out-dated and old-fashioned fabrics which were great for vintage projects and accessories. Nobody has the same style and taste. It is also very likely fanrics are beautiful for combinations with other fabrics, which you probably did not see on first sight.  Take a look around at patchwork-works.  Combinations are often very beautiful, but you would never buy the fabric on its own. Patchwork blankets and accessories are always nice.  And even if they are totally out-dated or too ugly to enjoy; the dog will love it in its dogbasket.... 

More ideas