What can I make with all this fabric?

[dweezle]

A friend who runs an upholstery/curtain making business has given me vast quantities of fabric sample books - there are some lovely pieces of fabric but none are bogger than about 16 inches by 12 inches.

What can I make with them? They're all curtain samples and range from light cottons to heavy damasks.

Any ideas most welcome.

A quilt?

crazy patchwork quilt - and good bit is it does not need to have everything edge to edge straight

Madame

I thought about that - it's just that there are so many different weights and mixes - I thought about a story quilt to utilise some of the heavier more dramatic fabrics - there's a wonderful poem by a poet called Kathleen Jamie, 'The Queen of Sheba' and I have a very strong picture in my head which I would love to turn into a quilt but I'm a bit daunted by the size of the task......

are you wanting to start a business? You could make pencil cases and bags and purses and wallets and kindle sleeves and iphone covers and and and and.....

Hatti

My sewing abilities are not those with which to start a business! However, I have plenty of family/friends who have kindles/ipods/laptops who I'm sure would appreciate a cover made with more love than skill.

Molly - sounds like my kind of quilt!

dweezle, take a look here for some great tutorials, - scroll down past the kids section to find ipod cases etc!

Dweezle, don't be daunted :) You can make a square a week and just keep at it until you have enough. I bet though, yu could do a few in a night depending on how simple you want them. If they just need to be hemmed you are laughing :)
Seperate the squares into weights so you know which ones to keep together. A quilt would be good at 160X220 cm sq, so if you used 6X8 squares at 11 inches sq it'd be more than enough. Sounds like you have that anyway, and would be done in no time.

Table runners? 16" should be wide enough - you could sew lots of pieces into a long strip.

Or get some pinking shears and use them to make applique patches in different shapes, which can be sewn onto plain t-shirts, duvet covers, cushions etc. Add a few buttons or iron-on crystals (lots on ebay) to make it more interesting.

Whatever you don't use (maybe the fabric samples that you don't like) could be donated to your local primary school for DT and art activities.

I like the idea of a quilt.

little cushions and add embelishments and fanciness