January's sewing

Well I've been crafting non-stop through January trying to cut my fabric stash down and at the same time trying to teach myself new things :)

I'm trying really hard to recycle and use up my fabric stash AKA old clothes and no longer used curtains, bedding and charity shop finds. I'm finding it's a great thing to do... it's not only 'green' but while you are teaching yourself if you use stuff from the recycle pile it doesn't matter if you make a mistake, so I'm finding I'm allowing myself to be more adventurous than if I had gone out and bought brand new fabric.

I took the above picture halfway through making a 'Seaside Dinner Mat'. All recyled fabric apart from the wadding. 

• Polo Shirt = sky
• Yellow Duvet Cover = sand
• Turquoise shirt sleeve = sea
• White skirt = left hand beach hut
• Childs Duvet Cover = green beach huts
• Cloud, doors and windows = Old bed sheet
• Pillow case = Dark blue beach hut

 I did my first real go at quilting with this. It was a lot of fun. As you can see I also did satin stitch waves, they were a test of patience, the thread broke about 10 times on every run, and that is no exageration. Ages ago I bought a box of assorted threads from Argos, they seem to be very poor quality as they continuously break through projects and shed fibres something awful! I know it is the thread and not the machine as no other thread breaks like this in any of my machines and this breaks in each of my machines without fail...so moral of the story, buy named brands you trust when it comes to thread. Mr D said throw them away, but I really don't like to waste things so I put up with the frustration. I wouldn't use them on any 'important' sewing, but as this is a bit of fun and I am just playing and learning it's acceptable....on a plus note, when the bad thead is all used up, they came in a lovely organiser box I can use for other threads so all is not lost lol.

This is after the quilting. Not bad for a first go and for someone who was just winging it and making it up as she went along ha ha. Oh by the way, the cloud I made separately, stuffed and then sewed it on...I thought this made it look extra puffy than if I'd just done flat applique. Can you see that I did little Seagulls? I sewed them in a skinny satin stitch :)

I sewed a strip of rectangles together and cut this up to make the binding. I have slight regrets about cutting it up as I think it would have worked well as a base for a runner for a table...but there will be other fabrics on other days....sigh...

Here is the completed mat with the binding. It looks quite cute and I don't think it looks too 'scrappy'. Over all I am pleased. I had never attempted anything like this before. I have since made another ( with birds on ) and we do use them for every meal time. I don't know why I never used dinner mats in the past...they certainly pretty-up the table and it's so much easier to wash and dry a mat than the whole tablecloth if something gets spilled off the plate!

I've been sewing lots of other things and will post more pics soon!