A Fabric Yarn...

When most of us think about crochet, we think of yarn – defined on Dictionary.com as “a thread made of natural or synthetic fibers and used for knitting and weaving”.

It is made by spinning which is further defined as the ‘drawing out, twisting, and winding of fibers”. We differentiate types of yarn based on the fiber – wool, cotton, silk, acrylic, etc. However, we can also crochet with yarn substitutes. A couple of years ago I wrote about recycling plastic grocery bags into "yarn". This idea led me to another project for using up remnants of fabric. I took some of the scrap fabric left from making a quilt, and made a crocheted fabric yarn purse.

Making the fabric couldn't be easier.

Step 1 – cut fabric into narrow strips. I cut mine at ½ inch to make a bulky but manageable yarn. Make sure to cut each strip into the longest length possible. This will reduce the number of joins you need to make, and save time. You can either cut the strips with scissors or a rotary cutter, or if you want a softer look, rip the fabric. To do this, use your scissors to cut small snips the appropriate width about along one selvage edge of your fabric. Then just start ripping the strips. Due to the fact that fabric is not always printed to line up perfectly with the straight of grain, you may find that the first couple of rips are very short. However, this is the best way to square up the fabric, and will yield a stronger yarn.

Step 2 - cut a small slit in the both ends of each strip. Now thread the end of one strip through one end slit of another.

Step 3 – take the other end of strip #2 and thread it through the slit end which has been passed through strip #1

Step 4 – pull the resulting knot tight.

Step 5 – continue to add strips until you have many yards, then roll the “yarn” into a ball ready to crochet. The beauty of this method is that you can always make more yarn – either from contrasting and complementary scraps you have lying around, or by going to the fabric shop to buy something out of their remnant bin.

A Little Fabric History

More than a year ago I wrote about my book The Home Sewing Reference: Fabric and Notions. For a variety of reasons that book was set aside while I worked on other things. Now I’ve picked it back up and am trying to work on it a bit every day. Here is a sample of what you will learn by reading it.

Hickory cloth [hik-uh-ress, hik-ree] is similar to other heavy duty cotton twill weaves such as denim or ticking, but lighter in weight. It was originally associated with overalls and caps for men working on the railroad and features a blue or black stripe contrasted with natural or white yarns. The name may derive from the idea that it was as rugged as hickory wood, or that garments made of the fabric were worn by “hicks”. Hickory cloth is a traditional American textile known at least as far back as the California gold rush and Civil war.

Unfortunately this special fabric is not easy to find and when it is, it is often mislabeled as denim. However the hand is much more supple than denim. It is a very durable fabric suitable for many purposes.

The photos at left show a bag made of Hickory cloth and a close-up of the selvage edge of this fabric. I made this bag as a prototype for my first Lady Bags line back in 2006.

How to Miter Corners for Binding

I thought I had published these instructions on the blog quite some time ago, but since I can't find it now, here is a brief section from one of my quilt patterns that explains how to make nice square corners when binding a quilt. This method will work equally well for adding seam binding to a garment.

The final step to finish a quilt is to add binding around the outer edges. If you have not already sewn the binding strips together to form one long stripe, do so, and press the seams open. If desired you can fold and press the binding lengthwise by bringing the outer edges to the middle (wrong sides together) and then folding it in half again. Some find that this makes the binding easier to work with.

Once the binding is ready, trim excess backing and batting material to be even with the edges of the quilt top. Fold over the end of the binding strip about a ¼ inch matching wrong sides together. Then match the right side of the binding with the right side of the quilt and sew the binding to the quilt beginning in the middle of the bottom.

When you reach a corner, sew to ¼ inch from the edge, backstitch a few stitches and then cut the threads and remove the quilt from the machine. Fold the binding at a 45 degree angle from the direction you were sewing as shown at near right. Now fold the binding back on itself and sew ¼ inch from the edge, as shown at far right.

Continue in this manner until you arrive back at the beginning. Overlap the binding for an inch or so, backstitch, cut threads and remove from machine.

Next fold the binding to the back of the quilt and fold the raw edge under. Slip-stitch the edge of the binding to the back of the quilt with small stitches to enclose raw edges.

The final step in finishing your quilt is to wash it with cold water on the gentle cycle and tumble dry it on low. While washing and machine drying may not be recommended for some quilts, if you are making this one for a teen, it will need to be laundered regularly. You may as well wash it and make sure it is ready for use.

Green Dust

I’ve been really unhappy with myself for buying disposable dusters such as the ones from Swiffer™ or Pledge™. On the other hand, they worked really well. You can poke them into places that you can’t reach as easily with your hand and a dust cloth, and they hold the dust much better than feather dusters. 

What’s my simple solution? 

Today I made a handful of reusable dusters from leftover fleece. They fit the same disposable duster handle, and after use I can just pop them in the wash and they will be ready to go again. 

They couldn’t be easier to make. Cut two pieces of fleece the same shape as a disposable duster – roughly 4 inches wide by 7 inches long. Round the top edges a bit and taper the bottom edge toward the center. 

Now match the two pieces with wrong sides together. Stitch a seam down the center from top to bottom stopping about ¾ inch from the bottom. Stitch two more seams on either side of the first approximately ¾ inch away from the center. Finally stitch very close to outer edge along sides and top. 

That’s it. Slip it onto you existing handle. Use a dusting spray if desired and when it is loaded with dust, just slip a new one on and throw the dirty one in the wash.  You’ll be saving money and saving the landfill from 100 or more disposable dusters you would use each year.

 

A friend told me about this service - ping.fm - that allows you to post remotely to your blog, twitter, accout, Facebook, FriendFeed, etc. I thought I should try it out. Of course, I don't believe in reading directions - just bang on the keyboard - so it will be interesting to see what if anything arrives...