Bags of Rubbish

Every Friday during school terms the conference room in the old office here is used for a social and sewing gathering of refugee women. Everything has been donated - sewing machines and overlockets, fabrics, thread, irons and ironing boards, needles, pins, zips and buttons. Every time I open a drawer or cupboard I find more 'resources'. The instructors put the class into recess this term while they spent their Fridays sorting and tidying all these resources and discarding anything unlikely to ever get used (that included a lot of curtains and sample swatches).

On one of their working-bee days I got dragged in to service a sewing machine. I have an undeserved reputation in that field because I fluked some repairs on a couple of overlockers.  I noticed that there were bins of discarded fabrics clearly marked RUBBISH.

A few days later I was encouraging a 14 yr old girl to learn to sew and make some cushion covers, so we raided the bins.

I hate waste.  I like finding uses for off-cuts, sample swatches, and remnants. (I have a label for my creations ... Res'Qued)

Anyway cushion covers aside (they were a success) I have bags of small pieces of printed cottons for patchwork (which will end up in my own studio), and bins of heavier curtain fabric remnants that I am making into tote-bags (again)...just to show them what is possible with this stuff.  It's all straight line sewing and easy beginner projects that can be made out of bits that were destined for the fire-heap.

Eyeballs!