Welcome once again to ScrapHappy Day!
It’s the day my friend Gun in Sweden and I host ScrapHappy, a day for showing something made from scraps.
The past month has been all about hexies, but not the Days Gone By version, so I have nothing to show for progress on that quilt. However, that doesn’t mean I haven’t done anything scrappy. A comment I made the other day about good uses for worn-out sheets made me think of this. I had two large enough pieces left over from the pillowcase mend to make two hankies, one 12 inches square for the Husband, and one 10 inches square for me. Well, flu season is nearly upon us, I’m having my shot tomorrow, so I can look forward to feeling a bit ordinary for a couple of days after, as usual. Soft hankies will be welcome…
Back to the process. The trick for a nice finish is to mitre the corners. What follows is the method I use. (There is another way, which seals the mitred corner, but it’s tremendously fiddly on mitres as small as this. That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.)
Press a quarter inch seam in towards the centre, all round. Turn this again and press again, so you have two folds.
Open out the corners. In the centre of each corner there will be a square, formed by the overlapping creases. Cut across the corners of this square, diagonally across the corner.
Turn this new diagonal cut in towards the centre, so that the remaining creases of the square line up with the creases of the seams. Press, without disturbing the other creases too much.
Fold up first one side of the corner and then the other, securing with a pin at each side to keep the mitre in place, meeting at the corner.
Pin all round.
Stitch down as close to the inner fold of the seam as possible. Stop with the needle down in the seam of the mitre and pivot. At the end, overlap the stitching a little and secure.
Press the mitred corners to make them lie flat.
Job done. Two new hankies, from scrap.
ScrapHappy is open to anyone using up scraps of anything – no new materials. It can be a quilt block, pincushion, bag or hat, socks or a sculpture. Anything made of genuine scraps is eligible. If your scrap collection is out of control and you’d like to turn them into something beautiful or useful instead of leaving them to collect dust in the cupboard, why not join us on the 15th of each month? Either email me at the address on my Contact Me page, or leave a comment below. You can also contact Gun via her blog to join. We welcome new members. You don’t have to worry about making a long term commitment or even join in every month, just let either of us know a day or so in advance if you’re new and you’ll have something to show, so we can add your link. Regular contributors will receive an email reminder three days before the event.
Here are the links for everyone who joins ScrapHappy from time to time (they may not post every time, but their blogs are still worth looking at). If you’ve copied this list from previous posts, please use the one below as it’s the most up to date.
Kate (me!), Gun, Titti, Heléne, Eva, Sue, Lynn, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy, Tracy, Jill, Claire, Jan,
Moira, Sandra, Linda, Chris, Nancy, Alys, Kerry, Claire, Jean,
Joanne, Jon, Hayley, Dawn, Gwen, Connie, Bekki, Pauline,
Sue L, Sunny and Kjerstin
See you next time for more scrappy loveliness.
talltalesfromchiconia 
Another tutorial I can save . Thank you 😍
You’re welcome!
Those are beautiful handkerchiefs! I love your pins too — most adorable! 😻
I love the pins too! They have the huge advantage of lying flat in the fabric where a round or nail-head pin would create a slight ‘hill’. It makes for lots of pinning precision
Now that’s really scrappy!!! Love that.
Plus, it helps to get you round the shortage of tissues just now…
I’ve made my own paper towels and tissues from some cheap toweling I’ve had for more than 10 years. Nothing gets thrown away now. 😉 Not as pretty as what you have there but I think I have something I can use for that too. You always have the best ideas.
I’ve just thought of something I need to make to replace using paper towel. Watch this space, probably in next month’s thrilling episode!
I rarely buy paper towel … one roll lasts maybe a year, so a 2-pack seems to last forever … I bought a couple of packs of microfibre cloths in pretty colours a few years ago and they’ve been used and washed and used and washed and show no signs of wearing out
Same here! I have a couple of microfibre cloths I was given with a housewarming gift pack back in 2011. Still going strong!
that is the same system that many of us bookmakers use with our covers…for eliminating the bulk…
I like this method. The other way gives you a seam there, but I don’t like it so much as you have to find somewhere to put the seam allowance inside the corner. It just shows that a solution that works for one application can also work for several others!
Can’t have enough handkerchiefs for allergy or flu season! Great way to repurpose an old sheet. 🙂
And flu season is almost upon us, as if Covid-19 wasn’t enough. I just had my flu shot today. Let’s see if I promptly get flu, as happened last year… Still, at least I’ll have some nice soft hankies.
Hankies from bed linen is very thrifty indeed.
It’s such good quality material, and better as hankies than just sitting in the cupboard against the next time I need to patch a sheet, I feel.
I wasn’t sure how seriously to take your comment ‘with flu season nearly upon us’ 😉 Lets hope it doesnt get any more ‘upon us’ than ithis one already has.
Still, at least you’ll have a good supply of lovely hankies.
Well, we’re heading into autumn now, and even in the tropics, it tears through the population. Both of us had a bad dose last year at about this time, so I’m praying all this extra sanitising and avoidance of others will pay dividends in flu transmissions too.
Doesn´t it feel nice when you find ways to use up your scraps! This is a very good idea!!!!!
Also, there’s not a lot you can do with lots of plain white sheeting; it’s too tightly woven for quilts. But it does a great job as a hankie.
in the UK people are using sheeting to make scrubs bags … for health workers to put their scrubs in at the end of the shift, then they can take them home and put the bundle straight into the washing machine … might make a good scrappy project for you
I don’t really have enough sheets to sacrifice for a project like that… We’re also lucky enough not to have an issue with a shortage of PPE here, our figures are very low compared with the UK.
This is a really great suggestion and, as you know, I have some suitable sheeting. Many of our hankies are rather on the dilapidated side, so this is what I will do rather than my usual root round charity shops.
I have to retire the Husband’s worst hankies very sneakily, as the most raggedy ones also tend to be his favourites. It’s always good to be able to slide some replacements in without spending a cent!
I love it when you share ‘how to’ Thank you.
I enjoy doing the How-tos. It’s simple, but you have to know the tricks, and sharing those is fun.
[…] see other Scrap Happy projects, see Kate around the 15th. I’ll be linking with another Saturday Scrap Happy, then Oh Scrap! and […]
Have recently converted back to hankies from tissues to cut down on waste, though you know I’m not nearly as crafty as you. Fortunately, when we moved my mom, I discovered a small drawer full of them. She no longer uses them so now they’re mine. Bonus: They come with memories of having them pressed upon me in church as a child when I had the sniffles. And they’re much softer than kleenex.
Yes, you don’t get memories with Kleenex. My favourite hankie is a big Tana lawn one that I made for myself, closely followed by the wedding hankie my MIL made for me: fine white linen with her hand-made lace incorporating the date and both our initials. So sweet, so perfect…
That IS sweet.
Thanks for the tutorial. I think many of us are rethinking our recycling habits these days. I’m ashamed to say my house uses too many paper towels. I like the idea of microfiber. Thanks!
I have a drawerful of crochet cotton cloths to grab when there’s a big spill, microfibre for cleaning, and cut-down squares from worn teatowels for use in the microwave.
Pretty nifty, Kate! Thanks for showing how you do it.
It isn’t difficult, is it? At least, not for someone used to the level of precision needed for making quilt blocks. I know that some people use this same process to ‘bind’ the quilt with the backing fabric, and it does produce a nice result.
Wow !! I bet they are of a better quality than the ones you buy in the shop.
They’re fairly robust, and should last a long time.
It will be interesting to see how social distancing affects other viruses like flu. I am expecting they’ll go down significantly as well since they spread quite similarly.
That’s what I’m hoping. The potential for testing to rise sharply when people develop symptoms and don’t know whether it’s coronavirus or flu is quite high…
Gotta try that!
A nice little stack of new hankies is very pleasing….
are you going to be embroidering intials on too ^^
No, I think not… certainly not by hand. If my machine did embroidery I suppose I might, but sadly it doesn’t!
Great idea for hankies!
Sheeting is too tightly woven for quilting applications, but for hankies, it’s perfect. It also makes good masks, especially if you use it in two layers, one on straight grain and one on the bias for maximum filtration.
[…] Kate, Gun, Titti, Heléne, Eva, Sue, Lynn, Lynda, Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy, Tracy, Jill, Claire, Jan, Moira, Sandra, Linda, Chris, Nancy, Alys, Kerry, Claire, Jean, Joanne, Jon, Hayley, Dawn, Gwen, Connie, Bekki, Pauline, Sue L, Sunny and Kjerstin […]
[…] Kate, Gun, Titti, Heléne, Eva, Sue, Lynn, Lynda, Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy, Tracy, Jill, Claire, Jan, Moira, Sandra, Linda, Chris, Nancy, Alys, Kerry, Claire, Jean, Joanne, Jon, Hayley, Dawn, Gwen, Connie, Bekki, Pauline, Sue L, Sunny, Kjerstin, and Vera […]
[…] this morning when he announced that there were no more clean ones in the drawer. Remembering Kate’s recent post and comments on an earlier post of mine about making handkerchiefs out of old sheets/pillowcases, I […]
[…] Kate, Gun, Titti, Heléne, Eva, Sue, Lynn, Lynda, Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy, Tracy, Jill, Claire, Jan, Moira, Sandra, Linda, Chris, Nancy, Alys, Kerry, Claire, Jean, Joanne, Jon, Hayley, Dawn, Gwen, Connie, Bekki, Pauline, Sue L, Sunny, Kjerstin, and Vera […]