Sewing with Scraps - Making a Project Bag/Basket

I've been working a lot over the last few weeks, so I haven't really had the chance to do anything very creative. As a consequence, when I did get a bit of free time a couple of weeks ago, I decided to use it as sewing time. I'd watched a couple of videos since Xmas, of people using scraps to make fabric and then making something out of the new fabric, and it made me want to have a go myself. One particular video was by Kate at The Last Homely House. She made a lovely little sewing pouch out of her scraps and it really inspired me.

Anyway, one afternoon I took myself off to my sewing room and started with a good rummage in my scrap basket. It was a bit of a mess, so I sorted through all of the scraps looking for inspiration. I sorted some of the scraps into piles to use, namely all of the grey fabric scraps and some blue/green scraps. I decided to work with the grey and black scraps and so I then set about making a piece of fabric from them.

I had a vague idea of what I was going to do with it once it was made. I wanted to make some sort of project bag for my quilting projects, to keep everything tidy and at hand. I've always got quite a few projects on the go at any one time, so it's useful to be able to keep them separate and have individual bags to put them in. 

I proceeded to lay out all of the grey scraps on the bed to make up a reasonable sized piece of fabric and then I began the long process of stitching them all together using my machine. It was quite fiddly and frustrating at times and you have to be quite methodical about the order you stitch the various pieces together, so it took quite a long time, probably 3 hours. By the end, I had a new piece of fabric and had virtually used up all of the grey/black fabric scraps in my basket, which felt very satisfying.

I then had to decide what I was going to do with the resulting fabric. I decided to make a kind of bucket bag/basket. I stitched two of the sides of the made fabric together to make a bag and then made a lining out of some more coordinating fabric from a bigger length. The back of the pieced together fabric was a bit messy, so lining it was essential to hide this. I wanted to make it stand up, so I sewed across the corners and cut the excess fabric off  to give it a flat bottom. I did the same to the lining. I then rolled the inside lining out at the top to make it look a little like a basket. I also added pockets to the front and the inside too, to hold needle books, scissors, thread, etc.

Here's a picture of the finished result:

Front

Back

It's not perfect, but I was really happy with the outcome. It's housing my current star quilt project at the moment and it feels good to have made something useful and practical out of my scraps again. It's one of my favourite things to do. I need a few project bags, so I may have a go at making more when I get the chance.