Earth Day is my annual reminder to manage my fabric scraps. Quilters do their part in keeping textiles out of landfills. Statistics on the fashion industry discards are shocking. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a government agency, only 15% of clothing and textiles are recycled. The other 85% go straight to the landfill or incinerator.
One of the things that experienced quilters pass down to beginners is to save scraps to use in future projects. My first quilt project was a crazy patch wall hanging, which involved cutting fabric into small angled pieces and sew them together into a colorful block.
I was advised to keep every scrap piece, even thread, to use in future projects. Years later I decided that was not the best advice. Fast forward - I still save scraps and am more intentional about what goes into my scrap basket and what I release for sale.
Cindy of the_sew_sew on Instagram made a Scrap dress. She arranged fabric scraps on a stabilizer, topstitched them down, and cut her new "fabric" into a dress. Clever idea
Tip for using scraps: A variety of prints and colors need a solid or almost solid fabric to unify the design.
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