Sep
21

The Great Xtreme Destash

With an expanding family it was time to make some tough decisions about space in our house. I made the big call and offered to hand over my craft room to be the new guest room. Then the existing guest room (which adjoins Tara’s room) can become Tara’s new big girls room.

It was a tough call to make. But when I looked at it from an efficiency perspective it was quite obvious. I don’t actually craft in there very often. I was limited to being in there when Tara was asleep otherwise a) I couldn’t watch her or b) she’d tear the room apart. So I really wasn’t in there much. And it was turning into a giant hoard room. Hardly practising what I preach when it comes to sustainable crafting.

So I decided to set myself a challenge to consolidate the room to one filing cabinet and one tall set of shelves. I’m only allowed to keep what will fit in there. This means getting rid of a heap of stuff.

Readers might remember last year Cate from Polka Dot Rabbit started the Buy Nothing Craft Month. It completely changed my crafting. Rather than buying piles of crap because I might make something out of it one day. I stopped buying and started making. It did truly radical things to my output and my savings! Other than embroidery floss and sometimes aida fabric I’ve pretty much stopped buying stuff. But I got given a fair bit so the stash wasn’t going down too far.

But now I’m getting serious!

My mission is to make, give away, or sell as much out of that room as I can over the next couple of months. And I’m gonna share the results. But to add a bit of a challenge I’m going to try not to throw any of it away. So I’m trying to find uses for all the scraps too. Given the massive environmental impacts of the textiles industry, I believe we’re obliged to at least try to find uses for our scraps. And given the resources out there, it shouldn’t be too difficult.

A little while ago a friend gave me the book Generation T – 108 ways to transform a t-shirt (warning – last time I opened their website there was a blimmin loud auto play video on it that started with an ad. I’d mute before clicking..). It’s a fantastic resource and filled with heaps of ideas on how to reuse fabric. While most of the projects do rely on t-shirts in an existing form, a fair few of them don’t. And a bunch of them don’t even need t-shirt fabric.

I’ve been inspired by a couple of projects. Firstly there’s a great tutorial on how to make an ‘it’ doll. A nice wee baby friendly gender-neutral soft doll. Given how livid the mainstream toy industry makes me, I thought it made perfect sense to get organised and make my own. Now I have a stash of future presents and stall items for markets!

The first bunch I made I used some terry towling I had lying around.

Believe it or not, I wasn’t actually intending to make aliens. It was just a fluke I picked the green fabric. And it wasn’t until I finished them I had that ‘would you look at that’ moment. I gave one to the neighbours wee boy and he loves chewing on it. The best things about them is that they can be thrown in the washing machine if they get dirty – perfect baby toys!

I decided to have another go making them but with a bit of variation.

I call these ones ‘little hugs’. Gave them extra long arms so they can give their friends lots of big cuddles. And I gave them faces; stitched on, so there’s no dangerous fally off choky bits.

I’m quite proud of them, they look really cool! And were nice and easy to make. I think all up it took me about three hours to make four of them at a time. Can’t wait to give them to some certain little people…

Next up is still a WIP. But I decided to get into my scraps bag and make something fun with all the crazy unmatched scraps in there. Another project in the Generation T book is a couple of great patterns for rugs. I decided to make a braided one as a new mat for our toilet. Our existing one is pretty damn ugly. And it’s a room in our house that needs more craft in it!

All you have to do is cut your fabric into strips, stitch the strips together (I used a zig zag stitch on the sewing machine but you can hand stitch it no problems), braid three lengths together and then using a running stitch/whip stitch, stitch the braid on the under side into a spiral. It’s a bit slow to do but it looks cool! And a great way to use a heap of fabric. I started with three lengths about 3 metres long and I’ve got a rug about 30cm wide. I need to add another couple of metres worth I reckon, to make it big enough for a loo mat.

This last shot shows the underside. The red thread is my running stitch holding it together.

This is a great project for using very different types of fabric since they get mixed up so nicely. I used everything from nice japanese cottons to upholstery fabric selvedge. It’s a fun way to remember all your past projects! Will post a pic when it’s finished.

My craft room is also supplying all the resources I need for the Interventionist Guide. Other than a roll of gutter guard I picked up from an op shop. Everything in the show is coming out of my stash.

I’m also planning to sell a few things. Mostly things I know other people could really appreciate that I’m simply not appreciating enough. All in the Radical Rags store and living in the vintage supplies section. Yesterday I listed a couple of Golden Hands books. They’re in excellent condition. Don’t think the original owner ever used them. And I haven’t either.. I’ve got a few of them to list yet so if you’re a collector and have a hole in your collection, let me know and I’ll let you know if I’ve got it.

So it’s a blimmin big mission but one I’m determined to complete. Stay tuned for updates.

In the meantime I have to share this pic of Tara. I so wish I was as cool as her