Almost everyone who sews has a bag of fabric scraps. The cloth is too good to bin and too small to use. This post shows how to sort the bag and lists what to make from it. It ends with one project we know well, a stitched panel of squares.
Sort the scraps first
A sorted pile is easier to use than an unsorted one. One crafter and Sewing.com suggest ways to sort.
One crafter, writing at Scattered Thoughts of a Crafty Mom, keeps “most scraps that are at least two by two inches up to almost a fat quarter in size”. That minimum is about 5 × 5 cm, and a fat quarter is a pre-cut piece of fabric that quilters buy, about 46 × 56 cm. Her small collection sat in a basket. As it grew, she sorted by colour into bins and drawers (Scattered Thoughts of a Crafty Mom).
Sewing.com sorts by size. It says small pieces of 10 to 50 cm “work great for accessories like scrunchies, coin purses, or headbands”. Larger scraps of half a metre or so “can be made into bags, hats, or small garments” (Sewing.com).
Both ideas work together. First sort by size, then by colour or by how light or dark the cloth is.
Check the cloth
Check each scrap before you keep it. A few quick checks save time later.
- Tug a corner gently. Cloth that tears or stretches will not hold together when sewn.
- Set aside stretchy knit, sheer cloth and thick cloth.
- Cut around seams, stains, holes and thin, worn spots.
Cotton and linen suit most projects. Worn cloth is fine while it stays strong.
Small makes from scraps
The big lists give an idea of the range. Scattered Thoughts of a Crafty Mom lists 78 small scrap projects, from coasters and pot holders to pincushions, headbands and fabric bowls. Sewing.com lists 101, including key chains, tea towels, zipper pouches and bookmarks.
Some items turn up on both lists:
- Coasters
- Bookmarks
- Key chains
- Tea towels
- Zipper pouches
Patchwork uses the tiniest scraps. It joins many small pieces into one larger piece, so a panel or a cushion cover can hold dozens of different cloths at once.
A project for many small scraps: a stitched panel
Small makes use a few scraps each. A patchwork panel uses a lot of them. Our studio helps with this one.
A Kantha panel is 35 squares of cloth. Makers cut each square 6 × 6 cm, and only 4 × 4 cm shows. That is a small piece. A scrap just over 2 × 2 inches (about 5 × 5 cm) is enough, which is close to the size the crafter above keeps.
A maker goes from a bag of scraps to a panel in these steps:
- Pick the scraps that pass the checks above.
- Cut 6 × 6 cm squares with a window template and scissors. The cutting guide shows how.
- Photograph each kind of cloth in daylight and tell the studio how many squares you cut.
- Choose a pattern. The studio arranges the cloth to fit it, and 11 Kantha patterns for 35 squares of cloth describes each one.
- Print the sheet at 100%, lay the squares on a backing cloth and stitch rows of running stitch through them.
The panel looks like patchwork, but the squares lie on a backing cloth, the way appliqué works, and do not join edge to edge. The Help page shows the steps with drawings.
The studio is free, does not need a sign-in and keeps the cloth photos on the device. It also starts with a Sample box of real cloth, so a maker can try a pattern before cutting anything.
Keep what you cannot use yet
Some scraps fit no project today. Fold them, keep them in a box and add to it. A box that holds many kinds of cloth gives a patchwork panel more to choose from. Plain and printed cloth both help, so keep some of each.
Sorting by light and dark helps most. Cloth that looks alike in colour can still differ in tone, and tone is what makes a pattern show.
Why keep scraps at all
Good cloth thrown away is a waste, and tailors’ floors fill up with it. Our post on where cloth scraps go has the figures. The manifesto explains why we think a box of scraps and an afternoon are enough to keep some of it in use.
Makers in Fort Kochi stitch panels from tailors’ offcuts in just this way, as a case study of a stitching club shows.