What To Do With Short Pieces of Ribbon. Dress blog, post 692, by Angela Lansbury.

Stored

Ribbon Available

I have a glass jar full of short pieces of ribbon. I was wondering what to do with them. I soon found a need the filled.

I started organizing my wardrobe.

Some people with large walk-in closets have all their skirts on one rail, by colour and length. All the blouses on another rail. That looks neat. You can have two rails, one above the other. Good use of height. Or of short cupboards. 

But where can I hang complete outfits, or long dresses and nightdresses? Not in the bedroom cupboards.

Shower Room Space To Hang Stored Clothes

I have a hanging rail in the shower room. The shower does not work and we have not yet got around to calling a plumber. So why waste space! I need hanging space. I need to match up clothes, skirts or trousers with blouses and jackets. Why? 

However, I have height in the shower room. Although the rail is short of width. 

I decided to put clothes in the empty shower room. I want to save time and decision-making in the morning. That is the most important reason. The secondary advantage of complete outfits, is to save the width of the hanging space. In the middle of the night, I decided to match up the outfits. Complete sets means I have an outfit ready, to save time in the morning.

Clothes Missing Hanging Loops

But some of the skirts and trousers have no hanging loops. Did the manufacturer want to save the cost and effort of buying ribbon, cutting it into pairs of equal length, matching it to garments, spending money on time for the sewer. The modern system in some countries is not to have a factory where you must provide space, and sewing machines. Instead farm out each garment, possibly already cut, with the sewer on piece work, so you are not paying slow sewers more for doing less work, but for each garment. Less fabric, less sewing time, lower cost. No need for hangers. Fold the garments, ready to pack and ship, or post. Easy to stack on shelves deep enough for about six folded garments. Easy to see instantly how many you have.

What do you do if you have no ribbons, yet? You want to pile everything up neatly, ready for sewing.

How To Fold Garments Flat, All Same Size

The fabric might be stay crease-free if folded neatly. 

You can use a magazine or clean new kitchen chopping board. Or a marked table top. Mark it with washable pen. Or removable duct tape. Or a loop of ribbon, using the corner to create two sides of a square or oblong.

You can also see YouTube demonstrations of how to fold a tee-shirt quickly by grabbing the shoulder and tossing it in the air. I keep getting sent these viral videos on Facebook. If I like and share one, the system sends me more similar clothes folding videos made by different people in different countries.

How To Make Hanging Loops

How long does the ribbon have to be? If you are short of ribbon, you may want to use the minimum. You could copy the loops on your clothes. Mine are all different sizes. 

First check the hanger. Some hangers have a hook underneath, so any piece of ribbon smaller than the width of the hook will fit. 

Other hangers have a slit on the top. If the hanger is like a flattened A, with a bar underneath, you need a ribbon long enough to reach the top slit from the horizontal bar. Or you have to spend time swapping hangers to fit the lengths of the loops.

Also consider whether the ribbon will show, stick up over the waistband, when the garment is worn. To avoid this, you can sew the ribbon so that it hangs downwards inside the garment when not in use. 

Reasons For Long Ribbon Loops On Skirts

Whey do some garments come with very long ribbons? To allow the skirt to hang below the top, not inside it, showing the outfit as it will be when you wear it. That takes up more height in your cupboard or alcove, less width.

1 Use short pieces of ribbon to add hanging loops to skirts and trousers. (Americans use the word pants for what the British call trousers.) In theory, you can use two different pieces of ribbon, two colours. 

Could you use two widths of ribbon? Or two different colours? Or two different lengths of loops? To hide loops when wearing the garment, either sew them on below the waistband, or sew them pointing downwards, or long enough to tuck in when the garment is worn.