Using fabric scraps

What do you actually do with lots of small fabric scraps in different patterns and fabric types? Are there any nice and creative ways to use them?

Unfortunately, I don’t have any—but I could imagine making a blanket out of them.

You can cut fabric scraps into small squares and then make pictures out of them.
Take a Styrofoam sheet, place the squares on it, and poke them into the sheet with the back of a wooden skewer.
If you poke the squares into the sheet nice and close together, you won’t see any of the Styrofoam in the end, and you’ll end up with a beautiful, colorful picture!
You can either just start working on it, or you can sketch a design onto the Styrofoam sheet and then fill it in with different fabrics and colors.
This is also a great craft tip for kids—it’s a ton of fun, super easy, and the result looks really great!
Best,
Karin

@Karin: So the fabric is secured simply by pressing the Styrofoam in—or rather, by “squeezing” the fabric into the gap that’s created?
Does that hold permanently, or do you need to secure it in some other way? I really love your idea for fabric scraps.
Sidney

It holds up really well. My daughter made me a Styrofoam ball for Advent using the same principle, but with cotton pads. It looked absolutely elegant—everyone admired it. I actually did something similar years ago with balls and small fabric scraps. Back then, I used a crochet hook for pushing them in.
Best regards

Sidney, yes, that works well! The Styrofoam sheet needs to be thick enough so you can press the fabric pieces firmly enough into it. If you really want them to hold very securely, put a dab of glue on the Styrofoam before pushing them in!
Best regards,
Karin

If you attached or glued a particleboard panel to the back of the Styrofoam sheet, you could probably hang it on the wall really easily, right? Styrofoam itself probably isn’t that great for hanging up.

Too bad I don’t have any fabric scraps—otherwise, I’d love to give this a try. Great idea.

One more Easter idea from me: blown-out eggs covered with fabric scraps. Apply the fabric scraps with fabric glue or diluted wood glue, or with clear acrylic varnish.

Hi everyone
@Karin, thanks for the info about the fabric picture on the Styrofoam board. I’m going to give that a try.

@Nadelkissen
How do you keep the eggs from breaking while you’re doing that? Empty eggs break easily or get dented, don’t they? Do you put some kind of putty inside the eggs to stabilize them before you glue the fabric on?

Hi Sidney,
that’s not necessary—once they’re glued on and dried, they’re very secure. Nothing happens to the eggs during the gluing process because placing and gluing the fabric doesn’t put any pressure on the egg.

I think I’ll give this a try because I have a carton of eggs and a few fabric scraps, too—old T-shirts and stuff like that. Hopefully the fabric won’t be too thick, though.

Good idea
I’ve crocheted or knitted around all of them, or glued beads onto them.
I used to paint them too, even with nail polish—they’re still shiny today. Hihi

@Hamster
You could do that with Styrofoam if you have T-shirt fabric.

@Bastelhilde
With nail polish? You'd need a lot of polish for an egg like that, or several.
But apparently it was worth it. I'd have to hide the eggs well because my cats knock everything down.

T-shirt fabric with an egg didn’t really turn out that well. Now I’m left with bits of eggshell. Please don’t ask how I did it—that wasn’t exactly my finest moment. But shards are supposed to bring good luck, or something like that. Hopefully that applies to bits of eggshell too. Maybe I’ll try Styrofoam after all.

With a little practice, it’ll surely go much better soon.

With a little practice—and without your fingers getting stuck together from too much glue. ;-)

With a little more practice, you’ll be great at this—I’m absolutely sure of it.

Or you can make little gift tags!
Of course, this is a Christmas theme, but you can also do this for Easter or birthdays :)

Best, Virginia

I once made little owls out of them. Really tiny ones. And then I experimented with that and sewed some other little figures too. For example, bunnies and foxes. They’re also great as keychains.
Unfortunately I don’t have a photo, since I gave them away!

The owls are cute.
The idea for cards is good, too. I once had some lace from my mom that I also used for cards.

Thanks, muetzekatze :-)
@everyone
The gift cards or the owls might be an idea too, especially for people with two left thumbs. Maybe that’s easier when you can’t break any eggs while doing it, ;-)

@Hamster Why not just give it a try? :)

I’m currently working on a few granny squares, but after that I’ll get back to it again :-)