Shabby Chic Scarves

One of my favorite ways to use silky fabric scraps, yarn, dyed cheese cloth and other fun fibers is to make what I call a “Shabby Chic” scarf.  As usual, I found a wonderful tutorial on-line written by Sherrie Spangler, a fiber artist who has become a friend first on-line, then in person over the past 5 years.  Sherrie takes wonderful pictures, and is a talented fiber artist who is very generous about sharing what she makes on her blog sherriequilt.blogspot.com.  If you are not familiar with Sherrie’s blog, be sure to check it out for lots of inspiration and ideas!

So I am going to start this post with a link to Sherrie’s Scarf Tutorial – she has written about her process several times on her blog, but this one was the post that got me started. You will notice that Sherrie’s scarves look different than mine. I tend to load my scarves with a lot of different snippets, but Sherrie prefers to leave hers lighter and airier - two different versions using the same process.  That’s the beauty of leaving the process loose to allow for individual interpretations!

Above is a picture taken while I am stitching the scarf together.  All the fabrics, yarns, ribbons, etc. are sandwiched between 2 layers of Sulky Solvy water soluble stabilizer.  When I have finished grid stitching (rows of stitching across, then down the length of the scarf) I will rinse the scarf to dissolve the stabilizer, leaving a light airy piece of wearable art!

My next 2 posts will show other things you can use this process to create, so stay tuned!