Pillow from scrap fabric

When no longer needed, I think baby blankets make useful fabric pieces to make into other things and this fuzzy blue giraffe blanket just begged to be made into a soft pillow.  First, I embellished one side with some left over brown satin ribbon from the stash pile of fabric and findings that accumulates each time I do a clear-out of a closet or drawer.  I used brown ribbon as this blue pillow was to be paired with another pillow, also brown.  Putting right sides together, I then stitched three and a half sides, leaving half a side open for later insertion of the pillow stuffing.  After turning to right side out, I squeezed in the pillow stuffing (acquired on sale at in Walmart), then hand-stitched the opening and lo and behold, had another cute pillow for my son's bed. This project took hardly any time at all as I did the laundry at the same time, making for a very productive Monday morning.

Embellishing Old Blouse For More Use

After stitch witchery

Determined to use up some bits of old white and black lace and a shiny ornament, I went into my closet to see if there was some blouse or shirt that could use some embellishment to get me to wear it again. I found a somewhat worn white and grey printed blouse that I hadn't worn for two years and thought this was a good candidate for some scraps. It turned out I had just enough bits and pieces to make a fairly pleasing square shape out of the strips of lace. I stitched them on with the machine but hand-stitched the metallic diamond shape as I might have damaged it with the presser foot.  I think it came out all right and I've worn this a few times this summer and got some use out of something I might otherwise have cut up into rags or something.

What blouse looked like before

Blue jean pocket becomes charging station for wireless phone

Inspired by all the crafty stitch witchery on Pinterest boards, I ripped off a pocket from an old pair of blue jeans and turned it into a little hanging bag for re-charging of my wireless phone.  This was a simple 20 minutes or less craftie and I like how it came out. When I ripped the pocket off the blue jeans I left about 3/8" of fabric around the pocket that I then turned over with some iron-on seam fabric to finish the back and give it a little stiffness. For the hanging handle, I just used a thick seam from the outside leg of the pants and stitched it to the back of the pocket. All I had to do was locate a cup hanger and screw it into the wall to get this craftie done.  I'm quite pleased with it since I now can hang the wireless phone for re-charging at a plug that doesn't already have half a dozen other things plugged in.

Turning a Square Scarf Into an Infinity Cowl Neck Scarf

Red floral cowl scarf laid out

Finished square scarf next to original red cowl

34"x35" square scarf beside red cowl

Pin sides before cutting

There's a couple of large square scarves in my closet that have been hanging in there, quite useless, for a while.  The trend now is for infinity or cowl neck scarves so I thought I'd convert the square ones. This turned out to be far easier than I thought and I was able to stitch up a couple of these in two hours. First I found the red floral cowl scarf I owned already, to use as a pattern or model. I saw right away that the square scarf just needed to be cut into two halves that I could then stitch together to make the cowl.  So after cutting, putting right sides together, I stitched it together and then stitched the bottom to make it a loop.  I then roll hemmed the long "cut" side of the scarf. Since the square scarf came with finished edges, there was not a lot of other finishing to be done to the seams. I'm quite pleased with the end product and quickly turned another big 35" by 34" printed square scarf into a cowl neck scarf as well. So now I'm ready for fall!

Square scarf cut in half

Roll hem on long side

other square converted to cowl

Zippered Bag Made from Old Blue Jeans and Scrap Fabric

Determined to bust through some of those blue jeans sitting in my fabric stash awaiting re-use and recycling, I ran up this zippered bag on the sewing machine last month. It's your basic blue jean bag made out of the top of a pair of elasticized waist pants, added a zipper and lining with pockets and put on a shoulder strap. I just cut off the pants legs and stitched two pieces together after re-seaming the curved seams into straight seams. Before adding the lining, I stitched on a couple of floral scrap fabric pieces to decorate it a bit.  I made a complete other bag to insert as a liner and which included some pockets and pouches. The liner was also made of some scrap fabric I'd accumulated. The lining's interior pockets and pouches were cut right out of other fabric from my recycle stash. So they just were stitched into or onto the lining.  I also had an unused heavy zipper and put that across the top to make this bag closable and more usable. The shoulder strap was also just another piece of blue jeans from the legs, just cut and stitched into a long ribbon and then turned right sides out before stitching into the bag between the lining and bag exterior.
This bag has become a great extra travel bag for us as it's squishy and fits on the plane floor or in the bus or train overhead bin easily.  We've used it for all kinds of things like snacks and medications, or suntan lotion, or books and papers, you know, that stuff you just gotta carry with you that you don't want to check or pack in your fancy suitcase. And it's washable!