Zero-Waste Quilting

For the last 12 months I've been saving every single scrap of fabric and thread leftover from my quilting in one place. Because I'm cheap I try not to waste any fabric, but trimming inevitably creates scraps. As is my habit I used many of the scraps I generate for other projects this year. The real purpose was to discover how much textile waste I personally produce in one year that I didn't reuse. Here is the result for 2019, sorted into bags by size and type:

I'd say it's about three pounds of scraps. I can still reuse everything except these two bags:

The bag on the left is thread and fabric snips from my thread catcher, and the bag on the right are fabric pieces too thin to reuse for sewing. It's much less than I thought; maybe about eight ounces of waste in total. I could use these scraps as stuffing for a pin cushion, or material for a mixed-media art project, or even embellishments for my journal pages, so there's still a chance I can put them to work.

Is it possible to be a quilter and have zero waste? I think it depends on how creative you are with your leftover and scrap materials. Planning and purchasing the right amount of fabric for a project is definitely the first line of defense, and I'm already trying to do that. For 2020 I want to see if I can also be more mindful of the textile waste I create. I can certainly get into the habit of making quilt blocks from leftover fabric, and maybe by the end of the year have enough to make a sampler quilt.

Waste thread is more difficult to manage -- often my snips are less than a few inches in length -- but I've seen artists sandwich snips and threads between layers of tulle and top-stitch them into very pretty panels, so that's one possibility. I'll do more research and see what inspires me.

Comments

nightsmusic said…

I generally don't have much waste when I quilt either. I'm not nearly as creative as you though. If the pieces are small, I toss them. If they're a bit larger, I donate them to a local guild. I'm interested to see what you come up with.

December 25, 2019 at 8:01 AM

Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Store Closing Haul

The mega Books-A-Million store over in Sanford is closing, and offered an extra 20% off on their current stock -- all sales final -- so I went over to do some shopping. Safely but sadly there was no one in the store but me the entire time I was there. The Holly Jackson novel is for Katherine, the Halloween board book is for Oliver, and the copy of Garden Spells is to keep on hand because I give that book to everyone. The rest of the books are for me. I love Anne Cleeves, and the Galbraith novel sounded interesting (the first couple weren't, but I'm willing to take another chance.) The Escape Room is by a new-to-me author, plus it was cheap. The GreenCraft mag is just a guilty pleasure. Hopefully the smaller BAM nearer to me won't close. I don't buy many books from brick-and-mortar stores these days, but that's really the last one within reasonable driving distance.

Valerean

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