I have a big stash of small fabric pieces that I’ve generated and that my mum has kindly donated to me from her sewing projects and I decided that it’s time to reduce the stash and put the pieces to use. I sorted some of the stash in to separate ziplock bags based on their main colour and I started experimenting.

First attempt, lessons learned

I decided to make a scrappy fabric zip pouch with a red and brown colour scheme. I zigzagged the scrap pieces together in random fashion, added a zip, turned the pouch the right way out and… oh no! some of the zigzag seams weren’t holding!

I had been too busy playing with pieces to think carefully about where I was placing my zigzag stitches. On the fly I thought as long as I roughly cover fabric edges it would look interesting and rough. But the result was more rough than intended, the underlayer was threatening to reveal itself, and the pieces could unravel completely.

Thankfully I hadn’t handsewn the lining closed yet so I went about adding some rough-looking horizontal stitches to the pieces that were in danger. They might not hold it all together forever but I thought that these stitches kept with the theme and I now have a funny little experimental pouch.

From the lessons come a final product

I decided to attempt the scrap pouch again, this time using a straight stitch. I had a better sense of how to layer the pieces, where to stitch, and how to get the frayed effect I was after.

The three pouches shown at the top of this page are now available over at my Etsy store, give me a crown.