Unexpected Surprises when Repurposing Scraps

After completing my first group of fabric wristlet keychains, as I was tidying up my little work area, I gathered up a nice handful of what I thought were pieces of ‘trash’… my leftover little pieces of scraps. These had been trimmed off when cutting from my initially prepared duplexed fabric pieces for creating patriotic themed keychain pieces.

The combined grouping of colors & patterns looked so pretty in my hands, I just could not walk them to the trash. But, what could I do with them? I decided I would try to stitch them all together… and just see.

After piecing together every little piece of scrap, I was surprised by the most beautiful ‘new’ little piece of custom, one-of-a kind fabric.

Now, what could I do with this?

Part of me could be completely content just leaving this ‘as is’ to have sitting around to pull out and look at from time to time or even just tack on the wall in my work area. This was a smallish piece of ‘fabric’ around 12” x 14” or so.

After a day or two, I had come up with some ideas.

I had been wanting to try to make a small phone purse, but would I have enough fabric from this piece? I thought, even if not, maybe I would have enough for parts of the little bag. If needed, I could substitute another piece of fabric or two in order to complete it.

I was happily surprised (again) to find out I had JUST enough…. for the front panel, the front pocket panel and the back panel… AND enough pieces to attach to a strap!

Even though I have a nice vintage Bernina sewing machine, a recent hand-me-down from my mother (but waiting to be serviced prior to using), at the moment I am using an old, rather basic Singer machine that is performing just fine.

I am using basic sewing stitches (straight & zigzag) on most of my work at this point. Even with these 2 stitches, with time & patience, you can create unique, beautiful patterns. I enjoy thinking about thread combinations and stitching options placements!

After I had cut and set aside the panel pieces for my little phone bag and its strap, I found I had enough small strips to make 2 wristlet keychains. I gave one of the keychains to my sister & kept one for myself. (I want to be sure these pieces (made of tiny pieced pieces) hold up well over time before offering them for sale).

AND in addition to these 3 pieces (phone purse and 2 wristlet keychains), I had the ‘jagged’ edges of my unique scarps piece of fabric left… again, ‘scraps’… SO, could i find a way to use THOSE?! yes!!

I carefully pieced & sewed them together to create a nice strip of scraps-of-scraps ‘fabric’ (about 2” by 16”) then cut that strip in half to create 2 bookmarks. I LOVE how these turned out! I gave one to my mother for her birthday (following up a book I had given her for mother’s day) & I kept the other one for myself.

I had SO much fun with the creating of all of this ‘from scrap’, however, it was quite time consuming. If ‘time is money’, and you desire to earn income from these creative projects, how can this make sense and not be at ‘a dollar and hour’ (Napoleon Dynamite)?

Or, maybe these pieces unique are just for me to gift to special people in my life. And the pieces I decide to keep for myself (like the phone purse) can be used as marketing & conversation pieces in promoting my creative work in general?? Additional thoughts and time will tell.

Here is an image showing the 2 bookmarks, my phone purse and one of the wristlet keychains (I had already given my sister one of them).