Scraps + Quick Pattern = Christmas!

Eye will Revive Eye Pillow

When the holidays come around, I always have good intentions of having sewing gifts made, however, somehow it is always creeps up to 1 week before Christmas when I actually get started.  Case in point...Today is the 22nd, and I have about 4 gifts left to finish.  Hmmm...do I think I can get this done?  YES! Why?  Because I am inspired to get these done.  If I wasn't inspired to make these gifts, I shouldn't even try and you could then call me The Grinch, because there would be no way of them getting finished prior to the 25th.

However, I am hopeful, I am listening to some of my favorite Christmas music, drinking my coffee with egg nog, and gazing at the sky, willing more snow to come falling out of it.  I have officially psyched myself up.  So, I am sure you are asking "what kind of project can I possibly get done between now and the 25th?"  Well, here is a really quick and easy gift, no seriously, REALLY EASY gift, like "1 hour to make 4 of these", Easy Gift.

I got my inspiration from this book-

Denyse Schmidt Quilts

This is the Eye Will Revive Eye Pillow, it is filled with Buckwheat, Flax Seed and Lavender for a relaxing break to anyone's day.

I made 4 of these, all the be given to 18-30 year old women.  These would be really nice to be paired with a hand written note about the importance of self-care, and taking time out of their busy schedule for themselves.  It would be such a nice personalized gift, and really low fuss, also very economical, as we are using SCRAPS!



There are so many great ideas out of Denyse Schmidt Quilts book, and they lend very well to scrap projects.  I took the general idea of the Eye Pillow, and the finished sizes and then went to my twice-leftover scrap bin to use up all the tiny little pieces.

Ok, so what is that?  Twice-leftover scraps are the little weird shaped pieces of scraps that are created after you think you have used your scraps up as much as you thought you could.  These are pieces that are odd shaped, or sizes, and would have to be pieced together with lots of other pieces to work well in most projects.  You will have lots of these especially if you are using your scraps for things other than quilts.  Like stuffed animals, pillows, or pincushions.

My scrap bins are wire bins that I sort my scraps in based on style.  So all of my fabrics that are New-Vintage, like Amy Butler, Heather Bailey, Denyse Schmidt, Joel Dewberry are all in one bin.

When I go to pick for a project it may have a piece from each different designer in the project, but they truly work together because the style is similar.  This is really convenient for finding a storage spot for all my leftovers.


Here are some of the bins that I have:

New-Vintage
Batiks
Brights
Flannels
Civil War
Pastels
Whites/Creams-Backgrounds
Garment weight-knits, rayons, wool

Some of these bins grow to two or three bins, and then I work with them for awhile, and they shrink back down to one bin.  But it is so much easier to be able to work out of one bin at a time, then trying to sort through ALL of your scraps every time you want to work on a project.

 I love these little surprises that can happen with scraps when you are working on a project.

I saw this opportunity with the stripes when I was trying different layouts with the scraps, and knew that I had to try to match these up!

Keep your imagination open when looking at different combination options for your scraps.

  

The backs and fronts of each of these eye pillows are different fabrics, and designs.

When I was finished with the layout of the fronts and backs, I fused Shear Magic to both sides.  This is a knit fusible interfacing to help reinforce the fabrics, and keep the contents from working their way out.  Then I clipped the corners, turned and filled with the relaxing combination of natural filler. (Complete instructions, and quantities of filler product can be found in the Denyse Schmidt Quilts book)

Eye will Revive Eye Pillow

Here is another really important step for me when sorting my fabrics: Sort them often.  Since all of my scraps are stored in bins, I am able to just sort one bin at a time, and every time I sort them, I am checking to make sure I still love all the fabrics in them, if I don't, they go into a bag to be donated for making charity quilts.  This is called "Scrap Management".  Have you always wanted to be in charge of something, but never feel like you are?  Well, now you can be.  I am naming you Official Scrap Manager of your stash.  There, now go and sort your scraps, you will feel better...