Stash busting - tea towels and tablecloths

Since having to stop sewing after my hip replacement, when I had to go for a whole 6 weeks with no machine sewing, I have kind of lost my momentum. I do not know why but I have. I just cannot quite get into anything craftwise. Its doing my head in now, because I am perfectly healthy and really want to keep blogging, so need to have things to say, else why bother?

Right now I am more into the writing part of blogging than the sewing, which is a bit sad because it all began to connect with other people who sew. It can be a very isolated world when you sew, as I am sure most other sewists will know.

I think its partly due to being unemployed for the last 5 months why I cannot sew. I mean I have loads of free time yet just cannot get anything done. When I was working fulltime and travelling to and from work for 2 hours a day I found I had so much inspiration. I just had not enough time for everything I desired to make, but I still made something most weeks even if it was only part of a garment over a month or so. Its like having got time in my life I just cannot find a use for it. My days go by and I feel like I achieve nothing. Or at least nothing for me. My house is very clean, which I can honestly admit was not the case when I was at work 9-10 hours a day. But my crafting was thriving then when it was difficult to make the time. Now its just dying off.

I suppose my new found knitting habit should count towards my crafting. I finished a jumper yesterday - I will post about it once I get photos - so its not like nothing is going on but just no where near the amount as when I had no spare time.

So to try and get my motivation going, I decided to clear some large bags of scraps out of my stash. Well when I say large some really are, but I have not found a use for many of them in 5+ years and I really do not want to throw out good fabric. Its not just that it will go to landfill. Where I live it will, which is itself wasteful, but its also that I am really not a wealthy person even when I was working and now we are down to just one income its a struggle so I really must not waste anything of use.

Also, one reason  sew in the first place is because for one nice top in a high street store, I can usualy make at least 5 or 6 similar ones that are also unique so I will not have that thing where you go to work, or a night out to find half your mates wearing exactly the same thing even if a different colour. So I do love the uniqueness of my me made clothing. But also I love the cheapness. And often my fabric choices are much nicer than the stuff on the high street. So there are lots of plus's to my sewing habit.

So here I am, trying to get motivated, and I realise I have these bits of fabric I bought years ago from an Ikea bargain basement. In fact they were a waste of money because:
1) I have not used them
2) they were not really cheap bearing in mind the sizes of the fabric pieces, which are cut from displays so offcuts of curtains etc.
3) They take up valuable storage space for fabric I might actually want to wear.

So I need to get rid of them. What to do?

Well they could be made into some very nice placemats and coasters for dinner parties but really I would hardly use them and I already have a very nice set of these. Its a bought set, but how many sets of dining table mats do I really need?

So in the end I decided to make tea towels.

I need some new ones anyway and hate to pay out about £5 for two, or if I am lucky three, decent tea towels.

I want some with hanging loops as well and the bought ones do not always have them. Its because the ones I have already like that are far better than those without. My partner seems to knock them to the floor too often without them being hung up, then the dogs walk on them, and then I just end up washing them more often than they really need. Half the time they come out of the wash never get used and then get washed again. Another waste of time and energy let alone washing powder and water. And all because they need a hanging loop.

Yes easy enough to add one to bought tea towels, but I never seem to get round to doing it.

So first, about a week ago now, I cut them up into rough rectangles with pinking sheers. Thats fine till they get washed, when they still fray despite the pinking sheered edges. So I decided in the end I need to get sewing anyway and heres an excuse, so I start by overlocking all the edges. But I want the hanging loop so I may as well continue now and add a hem with a small piece of ribbon for the loop.

My previous version of tea towels where I added the loops to the overlocking worked but I had to fix some of them so a hem is better I think. These are still going which is why I think this is a worthwhile project. They were made back in 2015. The new ones are far better made.

 You can read about the 2015 version here:

https://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2015/10/learning-to-use-my-janome-8002dx.html

Well the new tea towels have worked quite well and despite my rectangles are all different sizes depending on my available fabric they are very good, decent quality, tea towels.

And in the end my bought tea towels are not all exactly the same size either. They will work.

So I still have three large pieces of fabric left from this bag of bits. I actually did dispose of the smaller bits despite it kills me to throw anything away.

You have to have some self control though. The problem is I can think of a use for just about everything. At one point I even saved all my overlocker bits. You know those thin strips that get cut off the edges. I thought when I had enough I could use them to stuff footstools. I had to get rid in the end because they were taking over the house and my partner was complaining about it. He does put up with a lot sometimes😀.

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One of the three remaining bits of fabric is this floral rectangle. Its definitely not a favourite pattern for me, but still too good to just chuck out.

I did not bother ironing any of this I am afraid since I am lazy and the large tablecloth will go straight into storage. My reasoning is I will have to iron it when I next use it anyway so whats the point right now?

I know, my Mum would not approve either!


The floral fabric was thrown over a small table at Christmas and worked despite having rough cut raw edges so I may as well make that into a proper tablecloth. I am pretty sure no one actually noticed it had just raw edges at Christmas but a proper table cloth with hems will make me more comfortable when next I use this.

Its very effectively covers my crap looking but very useful (despite the dogs have chewed the legs) blue table. I inherited this from a relative and its very useful when you have visitors or parties or need a spare table. Its a drop leaf so normally just hides against a wall but its ugly so a table cloth gives it a presentability that I like.

Also, I have to keep the walls of my small lounge covered with furniture because my puppies ( now full grown at 17 months) eat the plaster and round the plugs which is obviously a hazard and annoying though my lovely dogs are for this, I do not want to find them electricuted when I get home. You can see one of their holes just by the left side of the table in the corner of the room. There are no electrics on that bit. Believe it or not that wall has been redocorated twice in the past few months. Each time in the hopes they won't chew it again. They are getting better. It has been far worse than this. It has lining paper and top wall paper too so not an easy job to keep redoing this. A pet sitter visits twice a day when I work but she will not be there when they are hard at the chewing of my walls so best I sacrifice furniture to keep my boys safe. That though makes for a very clutterd lounge. And my useful small table is part of the clutter round the walls.

So for when my table is up or open and in use, I now have a proper hemmed floral tablecoth.



This floral tablecloth is far too big to use when the table is down and in storage mode because the table folds to a fraction of the "up" size and it will trail on the floor around it, so I decided to use the two smaller bits of fabric to make two smaller tablecloths. I will need two because the table is most often down and since it looks better hidden under nice fabric its going to need me to wash the table cloths pretty regularly. So two it is.

My first of my smaller and my favourite table cloth is my deer fabric. It seems such a shame to hack the deers up t make this into tea towels so its a better way to use this bit of fabric up.  I did see someone - a blogger maybe? make a dress from this fabric but I cannot remember who it was. Personally, I have never so far found the right pattern for the amount of this I own.

Its a good table cloth though.

I even did ( rough!) mitered corners on all of these!

They are very imperfect but still a mitre. Well who other than me will ever notice? And you of course since you are reading this.

The second small table cloth and final bit of this project - for now at least - its the heab or floral or plant fabric which works well with my wall paper. I still prefer the deer fabric though.

If I had been sewing proper - as in garments, I would never have got round to making this mix of tea towels and table cloths, because its not very interesting to sew.

Its easy though, and sewing anything right now is good for me, because it gets my ideas flowing and hopefully will inspire me to make something more challenging.

I know they are not quite up to the standard of bought table cloths and tea towels but I don't care.

After all, I have actually found something to sew this week. Its not really a very interesting project but it does stash bust and its all very useful stuff. And I actually need all of this.

See you soon with more ideas............. 

Bracken