Has anyone any new ideas for using up polar fleece scraps? By scraps, I mean 18×18 inches or less. Maybe I’m getting just too weird in my old age, but I hate to throw scraps out. I have all colors.
I was thinking I’d just cut elongated ovals and stitch them onto tree branches made of rayon thread on top of other fleece and see what it looks like.
Have spent the afternoon piecing together various fleeces and making baby hats to give away and thought I’d ask the Gatherings populace.
BTW, can anyone recommend a good book on scrap sewing (besides quilting ones)?
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If you have strips about 1/2" wide and pull on them, they can be used as 'chenile' embellisments. I imagine you could use fleece whereever felt decorations are called for in appliqué. I made a table runner that called for felt 'eggs' for an Easter Basket.
I've used fleece rectangles to make a baby's blanket using an overcast stitch of multicoloured rayon thread and flattening the seams - could also be done on the serger. Appliqués made from contrasting fleece shows as stitched outlines on the back and are quick and simple to do.
What about mitts? slip on booties? backing for bibs? pillows (2 rectangles or squares with tied fringes) fringe for other projects?
I'm sewing clothes for 18" dolls and fleece scraps would be perfect for little vests and jackets for them...hats. mittens.. etc.
Dog wardrobe bits.
Depending on the size of the dog/s - booties, coats, neck tunnels, scarves ...
Dogs do well in polar fleece - and mine think it feels great - they sleep on their polar fleece wardrobe bits when they're not in them. (explains where the stuff disappears to when I'm searching for it)
last year a friend made a baby blanket in postage stamp sized squares that were serged together .it was really beautiful. the colors used in the blanket were a range of autumnal saturated colors..it wa one of those cases where the total was much much more than the sum of it's parts.there was a terrific random quality to the layout...that blanket was just mamzing...given the simplicity of the whole thing.
today I saw a baby blanket made with 6 inch squares of bright polar fleece backed with a colid piece..there may have been batting in the mix as well.
I could see garments made out of this yardage...particularly with the smaller squares. I have been making hats out of bits of polar fleece.
Have you thought about cutting the scraps in strips and use them to knit, crochet, weave, braid or twine carpets with?
I think fleece is very suitable because it doesn't fray like other fabrics normally used for this purpose...
My cousin makes mittens out of polar fleece scraps, and then gives them to the local schools, so that kids that forget their mittens will have their hands covered at recess - 'course, she lives in Wisconsin - where this is *very* important!
I recently sewed 75 hats from polarfleece scraps. I used Green Pepper pattern #522. I traced all the sizes for all the pieces on red dot tracer. This stuff sticks to the polarfleece so no pinning was necessary. I cut bands from long crosswise strips and the head piece from slightly larger pieces. I cut lots of pieces for the scrap hat from the very smallest pieces. If you have long narrow lengthwise pieces, try the Rainshed polarfleece sock pattern--it's just two pieces instead of three. The hats went over to Russia with friends who are adopting a child in St. Petersburg. It was lots of fun, and my polarfleece scraps have dwindled significantly!
I used the left over scraps from the many polar and/or plain fleece windcheaters that I have sewn, into a pieced quilt - my son loves using it while watching TV - he says it is very warm on a cold winter night.
I've just cut 5 different fleece colors of scraps into 2" x 6" strips and I'm not a quilter but I looked through some books and started sewing them together in a color pattern with vertical seams on one side and joined horizontal seams on the reverse side so that it looks "deliberate", and it is. The pattern that has emerged is a diagonal of the 5 colors and I'm not sure what will happen next, but our sons come to visit and always grab the fleece blanket in the family room so this will be one more to use. Quilters call this strip quilting, there is also string quilting which looks like a fun way to use the strips of fleece.
What is string quilting?
Thanks, Frances
according to a quilting magazine I picked up you sew narrow strips of cloth together , 6 or more and then cut the resulting pieces into shapes that you will quilt. Basically you are taking narrow strips and making them into a wider piece to use as a quilt shape. JoanWH
You can use the really small bits of stuffing for pillows and soft toys.
Large bits make great appliques on kids clothing.
As already suggested piece them together and make quilts.
Hi. I was surprised to get an answer today to a Q I'd posted months ago. Thanks. My update on the polarfleece scrap heap is that it still exists because I keep buying it because it is irresistible to me and I never run out of project ideas for it, and I have tried almost all of the suggestions posted here. I was dismayed to see I had not posted a Thank You, so Thank You!
My daughter and I made some baby blankets for hurricane survivors and then made some squishy pillow/toys to send along with them, and I sewed couple of quick dolls as well ~ used embroidery floss to "pull" facial features out of the fleece (much like the stretch-nylon dolls I made a couple of decades ago & forgot about).
The leaves are beginning to drift to the ground here in northern Wisconsin, so time for a new crop of cozy fleece items!
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