Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Calling all patchworkers and stitchers

Just wondering if any stitching blog friends can help me out? I'm looking for any unwanted scraps of cotton patchwork fabric that any of you might have going spare?

As you know I do lots of crafts - beading, cardmaking, scrapbooking and embroidery but its many years since I actually did much sewing and I'm planning on taking it up again and this is why ...

My late Mum was a keen patchworker and she made lots of lovely things, before she died she was working on a large patchwork quilt in multi coloured cotton prints. She would buy second hand clothes from jumble sales, occasional new offcuts from the remnant store and use pieces from our clothes and beg offcuts from friends and family as she was very thrifty and never had much pin money for herself.

When she died the patchwork was only half finished but I hadn't the heart to do anything with it so I carefully packed it away in its unfinished state.

When we moved house I gave away the big bag of uncut fabric pieces to a charity who appealed for materials, as we were very short of space and it seemed a shame to have it just sitting around when someone could use it.

The other day I came across this unfinished patchwork and decided I'm finally going to try and finish it, but I need lots of fabric and when I've looked at patchwork fabric its just so expensive. I need lots of variety as each patch is different, its like a windmill with each square made up of 4 pathces of 2 different fabrics and each piece would need to be a minimum of 6" x 18"

As the patchwork was originally going to be made as a thrift item from remnants and offcuts I wondered if any of my blogging friends might have some offcuts of either vintage cotton or left over remnants of patchwork cotton which you can spare me, I'd be happy to swap for beads, or buttons or make you some earrings or a beaded bookmark, or whatever in exchange.

Do please leave me a message or drop me an email if you can help me get going on this project by sending me a few scraps of cotton.