Gifted stuff

I have, depending on your point of view a bad or good habit of  accepting gifts of "material" in various forms. I may at the time have no idea what it will go with or even what I will do with it but regardless 9.5 times out of ten if I am asked do you want some material the word yes hurtles out of my mouth. 

That can lead to the gifted whatever it is spending some time as loft insulation before a project for it arises.

So a bit of "see what is in this bag" sorting in the loft and I came across some green material with  little pink and yellow flowers.  I can't recall when I was given it or by who, although I wonder if it was amongst remnants from a craft play scheme, or perhaps not.

It had been a duvet cover, with a slightly different pattern (more flower heavy) on one side to the other. Each side had a very large circle cut from it (cloaks from the crafts, or had someone been making round tablecloths?) So what I had was the corners and some edge bits.

Such an irregular shape it was hard to fold and I figured the best way to deal with it was to emulate some scrap quilters method and just cut it into squares of a set size.  No project yet in mind but they will be there all cut when I do.

Used the 6.5 " square ruler for that and the rotary cutter.  Produced 80 squares and bits. Oh some fair sized bits, too small to get a 6.5 square but to my mind too big to throw away and too big to add to my Bits-A Quilt.  Also as the idea here was to reduce if ever so slightly the loft insulation, putting the bits back  was not going to meet up with that.  So what to do with them.

I have mentioned before that the local council at the annual show often gives away cloth bags as part of their push for less waste (not that they did this year) and I have received those bags.  Indeed it is one of those bags that featured in my post in-to-2017 although the pictures in that post are all of the decoration and not the bag. 

The original bag is cream cotton with the statement "Love Food, Hate Waste" on it in green  with the O as a tomato on one side and "Recycle" on the other.  I had managed to get one of the bags stained with red onion and it would not wash out . So I figured I would used the bag as a lining, the scraps as the new outside for the bag.  For handles I would use the hemmed edge from the duvet. The old handles will come in handy as ties for things in the loft being stored in rolls.

I sewed the bits together  in wide strips the width of the bag until I had one section  double the height of the bag.  Sewed the sides together.  Turned it right side out, slipped the original bag inside then turned the hem over the upper edge.

For extra strength I machine stitched round the top of the bag just below the inner hem (it was a bit too thick to sew on the inner hem itself.

A strengthening row of stitches to the handles and then  added them by hand also. And this is the finished bag.

So all the bits used up then? Alas or perhaps joyfully no.  I have bits left which I hope might stretch to another bag, perhaps with some other bits and pieces.

This is a picture of my joining hem for the outer and inner bag.

 and how the handles are attached, just in case you wondered.