Fun with fabrics

I'm working with a box of handed-down fabric scraps, mostly of medium size, from a neighbor who is downsizing.  So far I have pieced together two different fabrics into a skirt, and have also made a fabric-covered folder and a bag for a set of little wooden toys.  I also see several shirts coming out of this box, eventually.  My long-term plan is to switch to button-down shirts made of woven fabrics; knits are harder to mend.  I have a pattern I made years ago from a thrift-store shirt that fit well.  That shirt had no labels and might have been homemade as well.

I've also experimented with covering small cardboard boxes with these fabrics.  It's not something that I want to spend a lot of time on at this stage in my life, so I was looking for a fast method.  I realized that I could cut wide slits into the sides of the box and just push the fabrics ends through, so they would be held by friction.  If the fabric pieces are wrapped around the outside, and tucked through the slits from the inside, the box can look decent enough.

This reduces the strength of the box, but the advantage besides speed is that the fabric and box can easily be taken apart later and re-used or recycled.   

I've also been deconstructing worn-out clothes into kitchen wipes as usual, and material for patching other clothes, and for other crafts.  I experimented with weaving a side seam cut from a pair of blue jeans in and out of the holes of a small basket I don't like--it came out well. 

I've done some Tightwad-Gazette-style "hourly wage" calculations.  Higher-value pursuits include:  washing Ziploc bags, mending clothes, cutting holey fabrics into wipes that take the place of paper towels, skipping or combining shopping trips, and decluttering to free up floor space. 

Back at home

A lot of my focus lately has been away from home.

I finished a braided rug, and put it in the bedroom at the foot of the bed under a chest.  The laminate flooring has a tolerable color, and ordinarily I wouldn't think that a rug would add much to the room, especially since I was using up colors I don't like, but it does make the room feel more finished and grounded. 

The rug's colors are medium tones, as is the floor, so the rug adds pattern and softness without standing out.

I went on from there and leaned a long board against the opposite corner, and then draped a long section of quilt top over it.  It's a bit theatrical, and wouldn't have been practical when my children were smaller.  It also is pushing me to incorporate a little more green into the curtains.  That might be as simple as lacing some crochet cotton through the holes in the lace trim, except that I really should wash the curtains first.

Eldest child has been taking remnants of Christmas-themed fabrics and other fabrics, and making reusable gift bags.  Not only reusable, but also reversible, with one side Christmas-y and the other not.  They look very nice.

The yard has greened up, thanks to plantains covering most of the bare areas.  The corner of the yard where my husband's dried mustard? plant from his community garden plot ended up last fall is coming up all mustard.  The flower beds are becoming jungles.  Children have planted things in various places--potatoes, lemons, carrots, and probably also apples.