Recycling

"Fiesta"

I decided to see if I could create an earth-friendly Bauble. Fabric, from a repurposed shirt - check.
Embroidery thread, well I have boxes of the stuff, much of it from op-shop and garage sale finds - check. Stuffing, fibre-fill from Spotlight - uh,uh, I don't think so!
So, what else could I use to fill my Bauble? I tried winding strips of rag into a ball. It was

1. not quite round
2. very dense and heavy
3. hard to stitch into

I didn't think using cut-up rags as stuffing was likely to work - too lumpy. I suppose I could have frogged an op-shop sweater and made a yarn ball, but hey, life's too short.

Finally I settled for cutting up plastic supermarket bags. I sliced up half a dozen with my rotary cutter, then six more - my word how that stuff compresses! In the end it took 21 bags to make a nice firm ball.
I wasn't entirely happy with the result, could have been rounder, quite hard to reposition the plastic once it was in there. And it didn't feel right, not much 'give', and again, too heavy - more of a cannonball than a playful ball, if you know what I mean.
And that was important, because I had plans for this one - it was to be a present with a message.
"Live, love, laugh, be happy" for someone beginning a new phase of her life.




I chose a Mexican colour scheme, and embroidered the words first in chain stitch, then surrounded them with the brightest flowers I could devise.

As you can see if you look closely, I never finished it.

It just didn't feel right.