Fabric Boxes

I recently sewed some fabric boxes and I really like how they turned out.  I found the tutorial on Pinterest.

One thing that made this particular tutorial appealing was that it just used plain old batting.  No super-stiff fusible stuff.  I don't dislike the stiff fusible interfacing, it's just that I don't always have it on hand.  This pattern is "fat quarter friendly," too, as there is very little left over from the two fat quarters.  Of course, you can make these any size you want:  different widths and different heights.

Anyway, I've been wanting to make these for quite a while, and I was inspired to finally do it so that I would have a "box" to hold my "un-paper towels" on my counter top.  (Read about un-paper towels here.)

As you can see here, the boxes are very soft-sided and can be collapsed.  But they spring right back up, and are perfect for my purpose.

The un-paper towels fit in the fabric box quite nicely.

And now I have a matching set in my kitchen.  The box for my clean un-paper towels coordinates with the receptacle for dirty un-paper towels!

Putting Batting Scraps To Use

 I've found a way to use my leftover batting scraps.  Or should I say, "another use."  I like to use them for little thread catchers beside my sewing machine.  The ones pictured here measure about 1 1/2" by about 3 1/2."  "About" is the operative word, as they are definitely cut free-hand.  They could even be bigger than this.

After they get filled up with lots of thread scraps, I just lift off the top piece, fold it in half and throw it in my bin of dog bed filling.  The thread seems to really stick to them!

At another sewing machine I have some cut into circles, as they fit that space better.