scrap bustin' time

Tuesday 21 June 2011
I'm always on a mission to use up my fabric scraps in a useful way, not just to clear them out of my sewing room but also to justify to myself the need to keep them in the first place! It's just that it can be so unbelievably fiddly making stuff out of little scraps, and I'm not even talking about sewing together a bajillion little squares to make one big quilt.

With wet and cold weather around here recently I needed something to keep Anna occupied too, so I delved into my humongous scrap bag and cut out a whole stack of teeny tiny dresses, tops, skirts and pants:

to glue on to these little paper dolls I picked up for a few dollars from an art supplies shop:

Total success! It kept Anna occupied for at least 10 minutes (only about an hour less time than it took me to cut them out.....), although I think she liked the glueing and tasting the glue best of all.  Every Australian kid eats some Clag glue at some point in their young lives, it's practically a rite of passage:



And now we have a whole village of paper dolls with somewhat mixed up fashion sense:

Best of all I have this awesome tin to store all the pieces in:


I purchased this tin of shortbread biscuits last Christmas purely for the pretty tin,and I knew it would come in handy soon enough.  Take that, doubting husband of mine.

So that took care of a small percentage of the fabric scraps, now to find a use for the rest of it!

And thank you all for the lovely comments on Anna's skirt in the last post.  I didn't pick up on the special connection of making something for Anna from something her great grandmother made many many years before she was born, but now I realise it is pretty special.  Her great grandfather is still alive, but he didn't really recognise the fabric - although I don't know if that's because he is 94 and a bit ill at the moment, or whether it's purely because he's male and doesn't notice these things!

10 comments:

  1. That is a super idea for keeping a little girl happy while Mom sews!
    I'll never throw away a scrap again. I'm pretty guilty of only keeping pieces that are more than one square foot.
    Christmas pressie number one taken care of for a little two year old :D

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  2. The dollies are adorable! A great way to get a girl on the road to great fashion sense.

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  3. She is so cute and you are so clever

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  4. Her look of concentration is priceless and just love some of her designs.

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  5. This is cute, the tin is cute and Anna is cute - but you are the best with your subtle wit ie the 10 minutes versus the 60 minutes cutting. So true and all part of the magic that real mothering is!

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  6. I want that tin! How gorgeous!! What a great idea for the dolls. Anna is so sweet with her look of concentration.

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  7. What a cute pie she is! And how concentrated...

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  8. I love that Anna concentrates with her tongue handing out of her mouth! Love it!!!
    And the dolls.... what a great idea! I may have to do something like that for my oldest granddaughter! Too cute... and although it didn't take too long for her to complete it all... look how you have both learned a few things... she knows how to use/eat glue (something we all do at least once here in the states also) and she can take a few moments to concentrate and you can have a tad bit of fun with your daughter!
    Plus then you used up some of your scraps! Way to go MOM!!!

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  9. I gasped at the picture of the tin box. Last December I saw exactly this cookies box in a store and found it adorable. I would have liked to buy it but didn't because - I was being sensible :-/ - I already have too many tin boxes in my home. When I recovered a few days later, I went back to the shop to get it, but all were gone!!!!! I'm glad you haven't been sensible about the number of tin boxes that enter your door!!!! Anyway, talk about globalization: you can buy the same cookies in Italy (where I am) and in Australia!!!
    Anna's dolls are so cute!

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  10. I love getting and keeping tins, just in case I find something to put in them! That is a great idea for scraps, too. So glad I found your blog!

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