Those bits and pieces of thread and yarn  from sewing/knitting/what-have-you projects (what are they called – crumbs? snippets? salvages? – there is a name but be darned if I can recall it!?) get saved in a jar on a kitchen shelf with other raw ingredients because I like the look of them and they remind me of the items made with them.

(Why in the kitchen?  Well, I sew in the kitchen, and the living room and the small room that catches the afternoon sun: there are five sewing
machines set up.)

The jar got too full to put anything else in without terrible crowding.I pulled out a handful and piled them on a piece of canvas-weight linen letting the hands and the fibres dictate the arrangement of colour and texture. (click on IMG)

Then I sewed randomly around it with only enough stitching to secure the lengths but not flatten completely.

(I experimented with lowering the feed dogs and taking off the pressure foot – boy, was that ever
                                                                                interesting, sewing with only the needle – but then I
found that, if I sewed slowly and encouraged the 'crumbs' to go under the pressure foot, I could get the result I wanted.

This is the item.

This is the item, now a pendant or a mosaic medallion or a pretty thing to hang around your neck. 

Here is a close-up.  I think happenstance came up with a very nice arrangement.  What amazes and amuses me is that there are a couple of 'crumbs' in there that I don't recognize at all!  There is banana leaf yarn and handspun rescues and rope.

This is what the back looks like – the ends will get knotted and trimmed – and the resulting  threads stuffed put neatly into the jar on the shelf.

I couldn't resist starting another one.  This one has plarn (plastic yarn) in it from an experiment cutting one continuous strip from a plastic bag and some elastic  pieces from the moebius cowl knit from elastic bands and a strip of knitting that looks as if it was cut for some reason – ?.  I trimmed off the excess backing and simply pin it (love those safety pins!) to a garment or use it as a closure on two overlapping pieces of fabric. 

I may try adding bits of actual material from clothing articles in the next one.