Chipped, Stained, & Cracked

 Do you have things that are Chipped, Stained, or Cracked?  Please share your ideas how you use them, or recycled them. 

STAINED:
Yesterday, I recycled some "Stained" projects.  In the afternoon I re-invented an extra large white linen tablecloth purchased for a couple of dollars at a garage sale last summer.

It was very, very nice cloth, worn and soft to the touch but little yellow stains here and there.  I cut up the vintage tablecloth, recycling them into eight 16" x 20" dish towels rectangles, and one set of pillow cases.  The little yellow stains were cut away.

Recycled Dish towels embroidered yesterday.

The first thing that attracted me to this extra large tablecloth was the quality of the linen and the lace.  I admit, as I paid for the tablecloth, evil wheels were turning in my head as I thought about carving it into smaller pieces!

I serged the edges of each recycled dish towel, then placed them in the 5 x 7 hoop with stablizer sheet underneath.

 Action shot here.  Machine embroidery of vintage serving spoon and fork.

Two Spoons:  this one I'm giving to my friend Laurie--she likes old spoons.  Laurie will take one look at this and laugh, and laugh.

Machine embroidering takes about 20 minutes.  When I'm working on special projects I slow down the stitching speed on my machine.

The finished towels are plain looking, I could add a printed fabric band from scraps.  What do you think?  Plain or Peanut?

Plain

Add fabric color?

Actually my first STAINED recycling project began early yesterday morning . . .

I was folding dark clothes from the dryer.  Ah, nuts--my favorite green sweatshirt . . . there were grease stains on the front of it.  I have no idea where that came from. 

So, I cut up an old green gingham shirt to make some triangles to sew over the stained spots.  Here's the cover-up job on my favorite green sweatshirt.

I cut random triangles, stitched 1/4" on edges, and turned the edges under to press, then pinned the triangles in place and used small blanket stitch to permanently attach to the sweatshirt.  Then, I got an idea . . .

BUGS . . . that's what's bugging me!  I'll embroider BUGS on the sweatshirt, an array of colorful embroidery threads. 

Recently I discovered dark gray smoke and walnut brown to use instead of black.  My favorites: anything green: lime, kiwi, olive, fresh green, and golds, oranges, plumbs, peacock greens and blues. 



Positioning the machine embroidery hoop. 

 (iron-on stablizer . . . that's the white paper-like sheet)

The hoop slides into the machine and locked.  Ready to go.

Detail of stitching the embroidery design.

Detail of finished golden bee

Then, a dragon fly

Then a colorful beetle.

The Finish: saved the collar of  the green gingham shirt and stitched it to the sweatshirt. 

I'll add some stippling to the triangle squares--to nail down the wavy fabric.  Have you ever stippled?  Its easy and a cool way to make quilted fabric for coin purses and Kindle readers. 

Confession:  I like to experiment with recycling . . . but occasionally I make a hot mess, a disaster, something truly awful, and have the good sense to throw it away before anyone sees it.   Come on, tell me your special word for making a mess . . . extra points for two-word or three word descriptions!

Everyday is Saturday, and my favorite day of the week is Tomorrow. 

Having fun, wish you were here.