DIY - How To Use Every Single Piece Of Jeans - Denim Upcycled Sewing Machine Mat/Organizer

Maybe some of the #NeedleWorkMonday community members can remember my previous Upcycled Denim Sewing Machine Organizer Made Of Leftover Denim Pieces. That has been made life out of necessity as when you're sewing, you need a lot of things, like different threads, pins, chalk, measuring tape and when your space is limited and not enough, organizing your tools is key.

My organizer/mat is a big help, it came in very handy and now I can't imagine my life without it.

I ran a search on Etsy to see what's for sale on there. You can find plenty, but none of them is denim. So I thought it's time to make one and list it for sale, let's see if someone needs one.

The Starting Point And Why

I don't know what others do with these leftovers, can only speak for myself, but I don't like waste, one of my goals is to stop waste, use every piece I can and give fabrics a new life.

What many people don't realize is that in order to get one square meter of denim, 150L of water is used. Now imagine that water getting discarded and polluting nature. And why? So a pair of jeans can be worn a month or two and thrown away as this fast fashion trend is changing so fast no one can keep up with it? You have no idea how many brand new jeans I buy from the second hand shop, those haven't even had the chance to be warn by someone. So this is why I'd like to #recycle, #upcycle, #reuse and whatever it's needed to make a difference. A sewing machine mat is not a fashion item, so it lasts longer.

Method

As I said before, working with leftover pieces means both freedom and lack of freedom in style. You have the freedom to piece them together as you want but on the other hand you have to follow the lines, the shape of the pieces you have. It's like a big jigsaw puzzle. The good thing about this is that you can't go wrong and each piece is unique as it's impossible to get two pieces the same.

You piece the leftovers together, getting a bigger piece each time. The only thing you have to pay attention to is the colors, make sure to get a nice pattern.

After some time my sewing mat started to look good.

Here it is, pockets applied. These pockets are the most important as this is where you can store the necessary things. Mine also has three pockets and I'm using them all.

What's New

One of the things I wanted to change this time is the back side of the mat. Because the sewing machine can be a bit noisy at times, applying a rubber mat like this can help a lot. Mine doesn't have one as I had no rubber mat at that point, so I'm using one under my mat. The other reason why I wanted to use this is because it stops the sewing machine from slipping away. I also have a piece of this mat under the pedal and actually it helps a lot.

The lower part when the pockets are will get a lining as there's no need for a rubber mat there. This time I decided to go with a white-yellow checkered lining as I didn't have any green fabric that could have matched the rubber mat.