Ribbon Fabric

I had always wanted to make some sort of ribbon cushion or something (well, I wanted to buy one, but couldn't get anyone to make one for me). I figured I needed to start with grabbing some ribbons and making them into sort of a ghetto piece of fabric.

1. Assemble ribbons! I started with 4ths because hey, if I ruin them nobody will be upset
2. Decide how you want them to be oriented (all text facing the same way or not)
3. Stitch into fabric, there are a few ways to do this

• Topstitch onto a backing fabric (calico or something) - topstitch using a plain stitch close to the edge of each ribbon, or using a zig zag stitch over both (but I found zig zag bloody difficult).
  
• Interface the backing (you can use one big sheet, but I found that made it really stiff, and also took forever to fuse on with the iron) - then topstitch just for added strength
• I've also seen people zig zag the ribbons together with nothing else, but by christ I just can't make that work - everything falls apart. I suspect I am lacking the required talents for this!

Now you have your ribbon fabric, and can start using it the same as you would a piece of cotton or something.


Notes:
Because ribbons are essentially some sort of satin type fabric, you should use a newish needle. An all-purpose 80/12 is fine, so long as it's fairly new. I tried the shiney fabric needles but they got blunt really quickly.