Do you have a wall full or ribbons, or a box of horse show rosettes stashed in a closet? I absolutely love the ideas for ribbon quilts Jeri Dansky has posted on her blog Jeri's Organizing & Decluttering News. I gave most of my ribbons away to be recycled at play days, but now I wish I had at least kept the printed streamers to make a quilt. No matter, Trillium is helping me collect new ribbons, so maybe it won't be long before I can put one together.
Photo K. Blocksdorf
Jeri's post has inspired me to do something creative with my stack of Toastmasters ribbons. Rather than a sewing, I'm using a fusible no-sew product and a fabric stretching frame from Ikea to make a wall hanging. If you want to try this, be careful not to have your iron too hot as the ribbon material can scorch easily or the printing may come off. Try using a Teflon cover on your iron. (If your collection of show rosettes and ribbons is lying wrinkled in a box, you can straighten them out easily with a warm iron and they'll look crisp again--unless they have gotten wet, in which case the 'stay' may have been rinsed out of them.) Nothing could induce me to hand sew a quilt, but I might consider machine quilting. Janet Wickell Quilting Guide has some great tips to get you started if you want to use your sewing machine to make an appliqué quilt with your ribbons.
Not only can you quilt ribbons, but those T-shirts you earned by volunteering at horse events. Of, if you've got the T-shirt and the ribbons (I'm thinking of my daughter's National Pony Club Dressage Championship memorabilia and the like) buy a shadow box, use the T-shirt as the backing and add in the ribbons, and any other stuff you brought home from the event, like bridle numbers, score cards, even one of your horse's old shoes. Don't have enough shirts or ribbons for a quilt? Try making a pillow or runner.
After you've clipped the printed streamers off of your ribbons you can do as I did, and donate them to riding schools. I've noticed at least one therapeutic riding school online asking for "gently used horse show ribbons" for use as awards for their students. Pony Clubs, 4-H Clubs, local riding schools and clubs may welcome used ribbons.
Do you have a clever use for horse show ribbons? Leave your comments below!
Clever Uses for Horse Show Ribbons originally appeared on About.com Horses on Friday, January 15th, 2010 at 05:57:44.
