Creative articles about sewing

A ClosetCase Patterns Pouf – made out of fabric scraps!

Hello Sewists! I am back with a new blog post for you all about sustainability. You might have seen that BERNINA focused its advent calendar last December all around sustainable projects. My personal favourite is this upcycling project because repurposes old men’s shirts. We have all seen those cute little girl’s dresses made out of an old men’s shirt but never have I read something about recycling cuffs – so cute! (WARNING: Below is my personal opinion and beef with the fast fashion industry today. If that is not up your ally just skip ahead).

A note on the garment industry and fabric

Some of you will know that the garment industry is amongst the top three polluters on this earth. All of this for “fast fashion”. While our mothers and grandmothers had four seasons, clothing manufacuturers effectively suggest that now there are 52! Those fast fashion brands deliver new and on trend items once or twice a week now.

On top of that the myth remains that we can just donate our old clothes to goodwill. The fact of the matter is, however, that the quality of fast fashion clothing is so low that even goodwill has no use for it. So our clothing is shipped to third world countries where they either destroyed the local garment industry (cheap second hand clothing) or are just dumped in a landfill. Some African countries have therefore banned second hand clothing import.

Now, you might argue that we as clothing sewers have a much higher appreciation for clothing, fabric and the industry as a whole, which I think is true (e.g. we are all fabric strokers ;-)) But we still use fabric and said fabric has been produced somewhere, right?

Generally, with all type of fabric there is a downside: cotton uses a lot of water (organic slightly less), viscose needs harsh chemicals, polyester is not easily biodegradable, leather needs to be tanned, silk is made by silkworms that die in the process, wool makes use of sheep farming etc. If you are interested in these kinds of topics let me know in the comments below and I might make a series about sustainable fabrics.

So, we as consumers need to make a choice. A choice about what we use to clothe ourselves in and for what purpose, a choice about how we wear, care for and mend our clothing and a choice about what we do with clothing that we can no longer use. You can consult the BERNINA Blog for great upcycling projects and enjoy all the creative ideas.

Still, despite all the posts of my wonderfully creative colleagues one topic was missing. What do we do with our fabric scraps? You know, those kind of scraps that are just impractically small.

The ClosetCase Pouf

ClosetCase Patterns came up with this wonderful idea about making a pouf out of scraps. And you can use the tiniest of scraps to make the filling for your Pouf! That’s the best part in my opinion. Maybe most of you already use your scraps for filling stuffed animals but for me this was an epiphany. I used to give my scraps to H&M for recycling. They claim to recycle even the tiniest bits of scraps for insulation. I am not so sure if this is possible and done by them (see above), so I prefer using my scraps for filling. I made the Pouf in December and used the scraps I collected from May to December and it’s still not full!

You can get the pattern for free by singing up for the Closetcase Patterns newsletter.

Assembly

Print out your three pattern pieces. I lenghtend the height of the side panels by adding 5cm (2″). You’ll need 12 of these.

These are the pieces for your top. I cut out as much as I could from the scraps I had. I had to collect them over a few months… Until I had 12.

Join all the side pieces. The lemon print is from my Francoise dress, the elderflower print is from my Datura blouse, the peacock print I used as lining for my Rumana coat (coming next month).

From the front…

… and the back.

I used some denim I had left to make the underside. You can close your Pouf with either velcro or a zipper.

Join all the pieces together. This should be easy.

I just cut bigger pieces with my rotary cutter to make them smaller.

 

And voilà!

I quite enjoy having this pouf in our sewing corner. It is like a highlight reel of my makes this past year! I hope you’ll try it as well. There is still a lot of room in my pouf it’s going to take me at least ’til summer until it’s full.

Happy Sewing!

Nadine

Difficulty level: Beginner
Time to Complete: Evening
Used Products:
BERNINA 350 PE
BERNINA 350 PE
BERNINA L 460
BERNINA L 460
Invisible Zipper Foot #35
Invisible Zipper Foot #35

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