Re- purposing without a Purpose

(click to enbiggen)

Now when I made this bag I honestly didn't have any idea what it was going to be used for. At the point that I made this I didn't even think about the impending birthday party I was planning to attend. It was made in a fit of "these fabrics are awesome together lets make something". Luckily my taste is similar to her taste and the time spent, when I had it, made my life infinitely easier last week, when I didn't.

She may have just been being polite but the lovely lady that received this gift was actually using it the next time I saw her. It is always wonderful when the time and energy you spend on something is visibly loved by it's new owner. Even if I wanted to I couldn't make this exact bag again. It is unique and due to the materials used will almost certainly stay that way.

Process overview for those who might want to try something similar (click to enbiggen)

Anyway back to the materials.

As the blog is reflecting recently my back has been good enough to start using my sewing machine again. As with anyone doing any craft, no matter how useful the end product, if you keep buying your materials new it very quickly adds up to a very significant expense. Being honest, it is in fact enough of an expense that it could very easily stop me from stretching these creative muscles and see where they can go.

I needed fabric that was cheap enough I could afford to make mistakes with it. Some small lots to encourage me to be creative with matching. Some large enough that I could potentially make a skirt or a dress out of it if the mood struck.

Standing in the middle of the op-shop after sifting the fabric donations I started getting a little discouraged. I found a few short lengths that would be useful but I am a girl of reasonably understated tastes. Understandably all of the small number of larger length donations were .. um .... ugly, garish and something I just couldn't imagine myself using.

Then my eyes fell on....the bedding.

Yup, there were piles of sheets in all sorts of non objectionable colours and patterns. To make my day even brighter as long as I stuck to the queen sizes I was generally paying less than $1/meter.

Now used sheets are not exactly an ideal fabric weight. That said at double thickness, ie one used for show the other for lining, make something quite useable even in a clothing context. The main thing I wasn't a real fan of is that most of them are now poly cotton rather than cotton but they fit my budget and right now that is pretty important.

When I have payed a total of $2 set of sheets it is much easier to take a few risks and just hope it all works out and to this point it always has.