Recycling Fabric Workshop ~ Simple Living Toowoomba

Today our Simple Living Toowoomba group held a workshop about recycling fabric which was a great time of sharing ideas and we could have talked for hours. A couple of the ladies even wore their creations which were very creative and colourful.

The shirt in the photo above was inspired by the ideas Jane Milburn shared at her Slow Clothing workshop earlier in the year. Isn't it fantastic? I love the colours.

Our co-ordinator, Margy, brought along some quilts she had made using old jeans, patches from her hubby's flannelette shirts and from old sheets.

 I don't do quilting apart from rag quilts like the one above as they are so very easy to sew. The hardest part is cutting out all the squares in the beginning if you are making a large quilt. The snipping part can also be quite tedious and you can get sore fingers if using scissors and I found that the Rag Quilt Snips made it so much quicker and easier.

One of the ladies went out to her car and brought in the little quilts she had made that her dogs sit on in the car. Very cute!

Margy wore a dress she had sewn using a very old pattern and the fabric was from a sheet from the Op Shop. Did I say she is very creative?

 

I did a short demo on how to make T-shirt yarn necklaces and if you have the urge to make any then check out the link to my blog post T-shirt yarn necklaces as there are some links there to tutorials that might come in handy. 

 This was followed by Margy demonstrating how to do some macrame knots which was very popular. She was using T-shirt yarn for this.

 Here is a bag she had made beforehand using macrame knots and this is a great way to recycle your old T-shirts.

 Another lady brought along some bags she had made from old jeans which were for sale.

 They are very sturdy and she uses a rectangle of lino in the bottom of the bag.

One of the regulars at our group has become quite an expert at making toothbrush rag rugs and has made a number of them over the years as we have had two or three workshops on this topic. Her rug is gorgeous. We have another rag rug workshop coming up in August which is bound to be one of the most popular ones of the year. 

It was a very interesting and informative morning and it is made all the better by everyone sharing their ideas. There were some very experienced crafty people there who were more than willing to share the tips they have picked up over the years. If you live in our region you are welcome to come along and join us. You can be notified of future workshops by adding your name to the mailing list at simplelivingtoowoomba@gmail.com so just let us know if you are interested. 

We returned from the Sunshine Coast a couple of days ago and some people have asked me about the whale watching and whether Caloundra is a nice place to visit so I thought I would do a couple of posts about that next week. 

In the meantime....have a great weekend!