Going Green with thread

So you have a ton of threads that you clip and toss each day you quilt????? Well, I decided to save them up and and do something with them. Oh great you say another pile of stuff you have to save. Of course! Isn't that the quilting way! :-) I found a great little jar that I keep next to my machine and every time I cut off threads I just toss them in the jar. Machine embroidery threads, long arm quilting thread, old bobbin thread, anything that I consider a string!

While I had seen it done, I had no idea just how much fun I was in for until yesterday when I turned all these little pieces of stuff into the a most delightful piece of fabric. With the help of heavy weight water soluble stabilizer, and some time to play, I was able to come up with this.

The original plan was to use it in my Alphabet album, but I am seeing a wonderful wall hanging out of this now. So I guess that means I have to start saving things all over again. Thinking about all the fun yarns on the market, that they make scarves out of, some have little blobs of stuff in the yarn... Hummmm if I was to save all the little dog ears I cut off as I construct my quilt blocks, and sprinkled them on top of the threads next time.... Wonder what that would look like! Does this open a new door as to just how small a scrap can be, before you really have to throw it away????? Oh so many ideas. I am going to have to sew 24 hrs a day to get them all done!

Give this a try though, you will be delighted to find that it is quite easy and very fun to do. While I did this on my longarm, there would be no reason that it wouldn't work just as easily on a domestic machine. Drop those feed dogs and play. Put on some great music and just have fun. It's a great time to play with some of the free motion quilting that you want to practice on too. It isn't going to show when your done, so you can practice all you want here. Just make sure that you cover your piece with stitching well. A word to the wise, if you think your done with the stitching, keep going. Those little pieces of threads have a way of sneaking out when your not looking! You need to have them tacked down in all directions.

Happy Stitching!