This week I’ve been hunting down linen.

Linen is that elusive fiber that I sometimes come across in interesting summertime knitting patterns for open weave shirts, tunics and shawls. I always make a mental note of it, thinking, huh linen. But I’ve never actually made anything with it.

Linen itself is harvested from the flax plant which produces long and strong fibers known as linen. It has a natural luster and is found in creamy white to tan and can easily be dyed other colors. It is mostly known for bedding and towels made from the strong fabric that is created when the linen is woven.

Less known is the yarn itself, which while not labeled “organic,” is pretty environmentally friendly. The flax plant can grow most anywhere with little to no pesticides and is very similar in its growth to hemp, which we know is also a good eco-friendly fiber.

Louet of North America makes a nice linen yarn in many many beautiful colors. Euroflax is available is sport weight, worsted and chunky. This yarn is machine washable and dryable, making it great and accessible for many projects. Linen yarn itself has poor elasticity and does not spring back readily, but it does hold a stitch giving it great definition, perfect for cables.

Euroflax linen yarn is available in most stores and online. Check out Claudia hand painted linen yarn available at the Yarn Co, too.

Mona over at Textiles and Bicycles had a similar experience with hunting down linen yarn. Check out her experiences with linen yarn.

Image credit: Purl Soho

It has gone beyond being relegated to the novel and expanded into all other aspects of art and design, making it’s way into fashion as well. The style is most often characterized by the use of found and repurposed objects, open circuitry and exposed gear cogs. There is also a blog devoted to all things steampunk called The Steampunk Workshop.

The mentality of do-it-yourself, that is pervasive within steampunk, is what helps this aesthetic cross into green culture. The clothes, jewelry and moded phones and computers are all created with vintage or thrifted items to achieve the proper “look.”

Growing up, my mother had several pieces of jewelry that she no longer wore. Not wanting to get rid of them because several pieces had sentimental value, she searched out what to do with the hardly worn items.

She happened upon a woman that would take old jewelry and recreate miscellaneous items into beautiful new pendents and pins from the old. My mother had at least two pieces created from this woman. The resulting products contained gem stones, pearls and gear parts from old watches. Who knew that my mother was at the beginning of an aesthetic culture called steampunk?

Adjowah Brodi of the Weekend Store offers beautiful handmade items typical of steampunk, such as cufflinks made from old watch parts and bracelets made from old watch faces.

Etsy is also chock full of steampunk influenced handmade items. Dust Design Co offers beautiful pendents (pictured above) and rings, also made from vintage watch parts. They are simply elegant in their nakedness.

Steampunk characteristics have also found a home in clothing too. Check out Bonzie, who specializes in thrifted and upcycled fabrics to create steampunk clothes. I am currently enamored with their antique tapestry jeans jacket (pictured), made with antique fabrics and frilly lace trim.

Image credit: Dust Design Co and Bonzie, respectively.

Frog Tree, another one of those great companies like Be Sweet and Conserve, supplies wonderful hand spun alpaca yarns. Their mission is “to supply meaningful and continuous work to various artisans and non-profit groups.”

Their alpaca yarn is made by a non-profit cooperative based in Bolivia, who also trains women to make hand knit items made from the yarn. Their yarn has become so popular that they needed to expand their cooperative to Peru.

Tree Frog has also pledged to be fair trade and:

• Pay a fair price, a living wage, for the local community
• Provide equal employment opportunities for all people
• Engage in environmentally sustainable practices
• Build long-term trade relationships with the producers and co-ops
• Don’t allow forced labor or exploitative child labor and
• Offer financial and technical assistance to producers whenever possible

Along with their highly sought after alpaca yarn, they also carry merino wool, pima cotton, a cotton/silk blend and brushed suri. The yarns come in many wonderful colors, suited to the fiber as well as various weight; including fingering and worsted. Frog Tree yarn might not be available everywhere and they suggest that you contact them to find out where your closest yarn store that carries their product is located.

Image credit: Frog Tree

350.org is spreading the word far and wide about the importance of the number 350 and you can help! Together with Craftster, Etsy, Craft Magazine, Burda Style and Thrifty Fun — 350.org has launched the Creativity 350 partnership and contest to draw creative energy and attention to 350.org’s goal of reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million to stave off dangerous climate change.

The contest is in two parts; a 350-themed craft contest and a 350-themed T-shirt design contest. For the craft contest, you are invited to craft any project that creatively expresses the importance of the number 350, using any crafting technique. For the T-shirt contest, you may create an original T-shirt design that creatively expresses the importance of the number 350.

Entries will be accepted from July 15 to August 15, 2008. Then you will get to vote for your favorites from August 16 - August 31, 2008. The winners will be awarded craft- and green-themed prizes. The winning T-shirt design will also be utilized by 350.org on t-shirts that will help the organization raise money and create awareness of its mission.

This is the perfect opportunity to join in a worldwide movement and practice craftivism. Think you’ll enter? Let us know in the comments!

1) Gather your bags. I separated mine by color, but why not go crazy and mix and match?

2) Start by cutting off the handles and the bottom of the bag. The result will be a nice smooth rectangle, as the bottom gatherings will have been removed.

3) Cut the bag into long strips of “yarn.” You can do this two different ways. One is to cut the bag in one continuous spiral or the other is to cut the bag in a zig-zag pattern as in the picture. Then cut along the yellow lines to get one long strip of plastic.

The spiral method makes a more uniform strip where the zig-zag cut makes the yarn more free-form and lumpy. I like this best because it gives the final project a bit more character.

4) Ball your yarn. I made a center pull ball with my yarn which was no different than with other yarns and the pieces easily tied together with simple square knots.

5) Begin knitting!

Words of wisdom: This yarn is a bit unpredictable. Casting on it’s a bit stiff and doesn’t stretch and move as easily in the process as real yarn. Be careful not to pull your stitches and make them too big. Once you get going, it is relatively easy to use, though. If you are a tight knitter, you might want to double up on your needles or use a bigger needle for your stitches as the yarn is a bit hard to move on and off the needles. It can be both slippery and un-slippery at the same time.

You can also find plarn for sale on Etsy from smallboxdesigns and silverblayze, just to name a few. Use your new plarn with some amazing patterns from My Recycled Bags, a blog that we all love. Try the cute Ribbon Sling Bag or how about a dishcloth?

Have other ideas that plarn would be good for? Leave them in the comments!

Ok, good. That’s just about everyone.

Raise your hand if you try and reuse them for random things like other trash bags and carrying lunch to work?

Great! I think that’s still a good chunk of you.

Now, raise your hand if you still have all these bags and still don’t know what to do with them but refuse to throw them away?

Yup, that’s what I thought.

Well you’re in luck because this week I am going to explore a bit about what to do with all those plastic bags. I’ve already told you about Conserve, a wonderful company that employs rag pickers in India to pick up plastic bags and then uses the bags to create the most amazing purses and totes. I’ve always wondered how to make bags out of plastic and knew that it involved fusing plastic together, but that’s about it. So I started to do a bit of research into what it take to do it yourself.

From the looks of these three tutorials it seems pretty simple. All you really need to fuse plastic are your plethora of plastic bags, an iron, freezer paper, parchment paper or other scrap paper, and a well ventilated area.

Start by cutting open your bags and cutting off the handles so they will lay flat. Layer between 6 to 8 pieces of plastic together and place them between the paper of your choice. Place a hot iron down on the paper and keep it moving. You want to continue to iron until the plastic has fused into one smooth piece. Depending on your iron this varies, so keep an eye on it! Once it is all “one-piece” let it cool and you are ready to use it however you see fit.

This fused plastic is really easy to cut and sews well too. Use it as a fabric substitute for either of these patterns. Or if you just like the look of the plastic and don’t have the time or can’t possibly add another craft to your crafting repertoire, check out these Etsy sellers and their take on fused plastic.

Have you tried this technique? What did you make? Have any tips for the rest of us? Leave them in the comments!

Photo credit:I’mStillME!

Just like Be Sweet, Conserve is a company with a conscience. Based in Dehli, India, Conserve employs rag pickers in the slums of the city to collect an abundant resource; discarded plastic bags (the bags are so prevalent that they clog water drains and cows will try and eat them.) The bags are then washed and prepared and made into beautiful fashion bags. The process they use to make the bags produces no extra pollution and uses less energy than conventional recycling methods.

Getting the plastic off the streets and made into bags is a win-win for Conserve. They offer income to an otherwise disenfranchised people and help clean up the streets. They use no dye in their bag making process, relying on the variety of colors and color combinations that is found on the streets instead.

Because many of the people employed by Conserve don’t have common words for different colors, Conserve named their color combinations after Indian movie stars, songs and movies. Chand (pictured above) is a cute stripped hand bag that comes in large or small in colors named: Mall and Swiss Alps.

To learn more about Conserve and the good work that they do you can read about them at Forbes and on BBC.

Images credit: Conserve.

Created by Nadine Storyk Curtis, Be Sweet is one such company that has all those lines covered. While living in South Africa, Curtis became enamored with the local craftspeople and wanted to share in their creativity and resourcefulness.

Working with a rural South African community, Be Sweet offers over 15 different yarns that are hand spun and dyed by women who work within a job creation program. All of Be Sweet’s yarns are made from natural fibers and most are created from using leftover yarn tid-bits and environmentally friendly fibers like bamboo.

But these are not your ordinary run of the mill natural fiber, recycled skeins that make up the environmental line; Be Sweet’s yarns are fun and inviting. Mystery Ball is made from recycled mohair fluff and is spun with small curls in the yarn. Knobby Ball is also spun with recycled mohair fluff and is characterized by its fobs. They also do lovely thin baby mohair skeins as well as a thick merino. The yarn is all hand dyed and their names range from Bollywood, Strawberry Shortcake to Sunshine. Magic Ball sounds the most fun, as it is made from bits and pieces of all of their yarns combined.

To get at the social line, Be Sweet employees women from South Africa to spin, dye and knit their yarns. The women involved with the employment program are able to help support their families and invest in their future. Be Sweet’s involvement in the knitting project has increased the number of trained and employed women and funded improvements to the working environment. Be Sweet also gives back to the community by donating a portion of their profits to South African schools.

To help them with that pesky financial line, you can find their yarn retailers here.

Image credit: Be Sweet

Seeing such amazing wildlife just reinforced why I care so much about this planet and why we need to find a balance between people and wildlife. It solidified in my mind just how precarious that balance is and how precious clean air, water and land really is.

Like a typical tourist, I spent some time perusing gift shops at various points of interest throughout the park. I was taken aback by the amount of well, stuff, to put it politely, that I found in them. Much of the, ahem, stuff, was made from China, too. All I could think of was lead and the recalls. Ick. But I really wanted to bring back something special to the special people in my life.

Charles Gordon, writing in Maclean’s, agreed with me and stated “We live in a souvenir society, a world in which everything we do, everywhere we go, has to be commemorated.” And according to answers.com, by the mid 1990’s shops that catered to gifts and souvenirs had become a billion dollar industry, with no signs of slowing.

So I gave in to the need to commemorate and share, and purchased some items. I think in the end I made some positive choices in my gift buying and giving, and avoided products made from China. I bought things that contained recycled materials and printed with soy inks. I also sought out items made by local craftspeople who were suppling some of the shops with their wares.

But now that I’m home, I wonder:

Is there a way to fulfill the need to commemorate trips with souvenirs that is more environmentally friendly? Oh, and make it a craft project?!

Taking the premise of Leave No Trace and the edict of take only pictures, leave only the lightest of footprints, and bring home only memories, here are a couple of projects that I came up with:

• Using several photos from the trip, make a small photo collage of your favorite shots.
• Take a thifted frame and matte medium and cover it with your photos, taking the photo collage one step further.
• Group your photos into fun themes like animals, landscapes or people to make a photo quilt. All you need is an ink jet printer, photo transfer paper and cloth to print on. Make smaller photo quilts into items like potholders or wall hangings. Remember to use leftover or organic fabrics.
• Since a large part of souvenir business is t-shirts, why not make your own? Use that ink jet one more time and reuse an old t-shirt and use freezer paper to transfer one of your favorite pictures onto your t-shirt.
• Use Autumn’s paper bag technique and create personalized souvenir postcards.

Have any other green souvenirs ideas? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Image Credit: Kelly Rand

Luckily, one brand that is commonly found in said box stores is Lion Brand and even more luckier is that Lion Brand now has an organic cotton yarn. Hallelujah!

Lion Brand Organic Cotton is free from herbicides, pesticides and other agro-chemicals. It comes in four natural colors as no dyes are used to make the colors. Check out the light gray-green of Cypress or go darker with my favorite, Bark.

The yarn is soft, warm and easy to work with. Available in worsted weight, this organic cotton is a great environmental addition that has made its way into the mainstream. And while Vanna’s Choice might be cheaper, it’s good to know that there is another choice out there in the aisles of that big box store.

Image credit: Lion Brand

Today, felt is a cheap material that comes in many colors. Mostly used for kids crafts and plushes, not all craft felt found in big box craft stores are 100% wool. Most are made of some synthetic fiber blend such as acrylic or polyester.

So what to do when you want to use felt in your projects and not use fiber made from plastic? There are several options to green your craft project and feel good about your materials:

• Look for 100% wool craft felt. One hundred percent wool craft felt is available at stores such as JoAnn and Michaels, you just have to look at the label.
• Buy organic wool felt. La Lana Wool offers organic wool felt, dyed with natural plant dyes.
• Make your own felt from carded wool. Felt is made through a process of matting natural fibers together. Gleason’s Fine Woolies Ranch, has an excellent and easy to follow tutorial on how to make felt. All it requires is some carded wool, hot water, dish soap and a bit of elbow grease.
• Make felt with your knitting. Using 100% wool yarn, knit up a swatch in stocking stitch or garder stitch. Put the swatch in a pillow case and throw it in the wash with lots of jeans and hot, hot water.
• Go thrifting. Many a sweater found at thrift stores are in need of a new life. Look for sweaters that are 100% wool and cut out shapes you want and repeat the process of felting knits above.

What do you use felt for? Leave your crafts in the comments!

Image credit: Aetna Felt Corporation

I happened upon Bijou Basin Ranch at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival and couldn’t believe my eyes. Here was yarn made from yak fiber!

Yak fiber is combed from the yak once spring rolls around and they start to shed their warm winter coats. The fiber is downy and super soft and a yak can produce between 1 and 2 pounds of down per year. The fiber is then cleaned, washed and carded so it is ready for the spinning wheel. The result is very similar to that of qiviut, in that it is soft like cashmere and warm like wool.

Yak yarn is a great fiber in that it retains heat in the cold but will breath when it is warmer out. It is an odorless fiber and can be easily hand washed with a mild detergent. Great for knitting up a warm sweater or shawl.

Bijou Basin Ranch, a small family owned and operated yak ranch in Colorado, offers quality yak fiber products. They sell a wide range of yak fiber yarn, including super fine to worsted weight, in all natural colors. They also offer roving and down for spinners.

With so many interesting, unique and sustainable fibers out there, I think the sheep are starting to get jealous.

Image credit: Bijou Basin Ranch

I didn’t win.

But here is a chance to try and redeem myself:

Intructables along with Discover Magazine have teamed up to bring the Green Science Fair for a Better Planet contest. By testing out a “green” hypothesis you could win some great prizes. Enter an eco-friendly project, test and compare “green” products, repurpose old parts, or just show how to live a more greener life. Prizes range from a GPS system, hand-crank radio, MP3 players, and t-shirts, stickers and books.

So get crackin’! The deadline for entries is June 6.

Oh, and maybe leave the potato clock for another time.

One of the things this festival reminds me of is the process that fiber goes through to become yarn. With sheep, llamas, alpacas and goats parading through, it is hard not to recall that - oh, yeah, that’s where my yarn comes from! It is a chance to speak directly to the shepherds and the spinners and gain a better understanding of how the yarn is produced. And Nature’s Palette is one such company that has a handle on the entire production of their yarns.

Nature’s Palette’s fiber is obtained from flocks of “Green Sheep”, certified USDA organic, in Montana. The fleece is spun using an antique spinner called a “mule spinner,” believed to be one, of only two, found in North America. The resulting yarn is a 90% wool, 10% mohair blend.

The yarn is then hand dyed using all natural dyes and the colors achieved through natural ingredients are stunning. Nature’s Palette offers a variety of colors including such wonderful names as “Spring Grass” and “Indian Paintbrush.” But don’t let the springtime names fool you. This yarn is wool and therefore very warm; perfect for hats, mittens or that sweater pattern you’ve been eyeing.

Nature’s Palette is available online at Naturesong Yarns and at the Yarn Grove. You can also read an in depth review from Knitter’s Review.

Image credit: Naturesong Yarn

It’s a good thing really, enabling you to BYOB (bring your own bag) on any numerous shopping excursions.

On one such recent shopping excursion to everyone’s favorite big box store, Target, I found another green offering to the tote world. Made of 100% organic materials, the cute market tote is available with sassy slogans like “Kiss me I’m Organic” and “I don’t do Plastic.”

While not hand made, it is refreshing to see organics and other eco-friendly materials and products making it to the mainstream. And with any of the Fabulous Fabrics, the totes could easily be recreated. Try using either of these projects. Just add your own eco slogan.

“DIY or Die!” anyone?

The musk ox is a large gentle creature similar in weight and stature to a buffalo. They have large curved horns and long shaggy hair and are more closely related to goats and sheep than to oxen. I first fell in love with these animals when I was researching the arctic a while back for work. For those of you that have watched the Planet Earth series you know how cute they are.

In preparation for the warmer summer months, musk ox shed a layer of their fur called qiviut. Pronounced kiv-ee-ute, qiviut is an Inuit word for down or underwool. The qiviut is very soft and warm and easily spun into highly sought after yarn. Warmer than wool and finer than cashmere, it is extremely rare. It is also often referred to as “the cashmere of the north.”

Qiviut’s natural color is a light brown-gray color and can be dyed various shades. It knits up best as a blend; the wool or silk lending memory to the fiber.

This amazing yarn can be purchased from Windy Valley Musk Ox and from the University of Alaska’s Large Animal Research Station where they incorporate environmental practices whenever possible:

Most of our yarn is processed by a small, family-operated mill. They strive to be as earth-friendly as possible, following organic wool processing practices and using non-metallic dyes. This philosophy compliments our process of hand combing the qiviut from live animals.

Also available in roving and unprocessed, qiviut is a luxurious fiber perfect for a scarf or shawl. Save your pennies because this yarn is pricey.

I know. I know. We actually all know the reasons not to do this. But my thirst won out and I was left with a happy sigh and an empty bottle.

To give myself a little bit of redemption, I gladly toted the empty bottle around for the rest of the day with all intentions for bringing it home, destined for the recycle bin. On my return home, I instead left it on my desk and contemplated the water bottle’s next life as a possible craft.

Turning to my trusty internet, I came across thewildhare on Etsy, showcasing mini pinchusions. Made from felt and a water bottle cap, I couldn’t help but fall in love with the “Death Cap.” Seriously, how cute are they?

Available in red and white, Death Cap Mushroom and brown and white, Fat Free Chocolate Chip Muffin, thewildhare has come up with a great way to recycle a part of the water bottle and provide great inspiration on how to recycle random found objects into new and beautiful creations.

Think of something else that could be done with my water bottle? Leave your ideas in the comments.

The 2008 Bay Area Maker Faire will put a special emphasis on “Green” living. There will be a huge exhibit featuring Farm Aid’s Homegrown Village, a local farmer’s market, Swap-O-Rama-Rama’s giant used clothing swap, DIY workshops and fashion show, Bazaar Bizarre’s crafts fair, a live Prius plug-in car conversion from Bay Area’s Calcars.org, and much, much more.

The Swap-O-Rama-Rama is a huge clothing swap and series of do-it-yourself workshops. Bring a bag of your unwanted clothes to swap with other participants and then learn to make modifications or totally transform your new finds. Recycling reused clothing has never been more fun.

The Bazaar Bizarre will showcase over 70 indie crafters and DIYers. Shoppers will find the crème de la crème of handmade goods: handbags, knitting supplies, pottery, stationary, journals, silk-screened t-shirts, baby clothes and more. Bazaar Bizarre at Maker Faire will offer attendees an opportunity to purchase distinctive handmade gifts, attend DIY workshops and participate in a community of creativity!

Be on the lookout for CAGW’s very own Autumn Wiggins who will be spreading the green craft love. Other workshops not to be missed are:

• Things I Learned from Knitting. The Yarn Harlot.
• Cooking with the Sun with Gladwyn d’Souza
• Sew Subversive and Subversive Seamster with Hope Meng, Melissa Alvarado, Melissa Rannels
• Authentic Innovation with Mister Jalopy
• Crafty Chica: Squeezing a Dollar from a Dime: How to Make the Most of What You Have with Kathy Cano-Murillo
• How to Make Your Own Shoes…the Easy Way! with Thomas Maiorana
• Finger Puppets Who Wish To Not Die with Stacey Gordon
• The DIY Bride: Quick & Easy Wedding Projects for Any Budget with Khris Cochran
• Guerilla Pattern Drafting with Autumn Wiggins and Leslie Beard

Maker Faire is this Saturday, May 3 from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday, May 4 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. located at the San Mateo County Event Center and Fairgrounds. Admission is $25/$20 in advance for Adults; $15/$10 in advance for students; $10/$5 in advance for youth and children under 4 are free.

The pretty weather and gorgeous sunshine have given me a hankering for beautiful spring colors in my yarns. Thankfully Tahki Sky has it covered.

Made from 100% biofil cotton, this super soft yarn comes in a variety of mouth watering sherbet colors perfect for the season. Similar to organic cotton, biofil cotton touts itself as grown without pesticides, chemical fertilizers or defoliants - nasty chemicals that make the leaves of plants fall off. Tahki Sky is spun and then colored with low-impact dyes that are environmentally-friendly and produce soft, soothing, natural colors.

I know I have my eye on New Leaf and Cherry Blossom in hopes that when the humidity strikes, I can be reminded of the gentler Springtime.

Who makes your favorite sustainable yarns? Which natural fiber is your favorite to work with? (i.e. cotton, wool, bamboo, hemp … etc.) Let us know what you love to create with and we might feature them in the next installment of Yearn-Worthy Yarns!

Like the world of plushes and softies, quilting is another craft that I have been keeping an eye on, but have yet to fully try out. The concept seems easy enough, but I’ve never been very patient and can’t quite get the whole measure twice, cut once, thing down. A friend of mine recently made me a quilt and I am in awe of the time and talent that she put into it.

Quilting is definitely on the move in the crafting world and quickly becoming the hip craft to do. The exploding popularity of Amy Butler and Denyse Schmidt have propelled this craft into the lime light and it is easy to see why.

If you delve into this craft you’ll need batting. Batting is used in the middle layer of quilts and is the bulk of the quilt. Depending on the type and thickness of the batting used, the softness and weight of the finished product will vary. Here are some greener options to try when tackling that first or tenth quilt:

• Cotton batting is lightweight and easy to work with for both hand and machine quilting. Choose organic cotton and like any other organic cotton option, you’ll help reduce the need for chemical pesticides used to grow conventional cotton. Organic cotton batting is available from a couple of sources, the most common being Heirloom. AIRTECH is another option that is 100% organic cotton.
• Wool batting is a favorite among quilters because of its soft feel and it provides warmth without being too heavy. Both myself and Skye have fallen in love with NearSea Naturals and amongst all of their eco-friendly products they offer a wool batting as well.
• Another fiber option for batting is alpaca. Just like wool, alpaca is warm and a wonderful renewable resource. Victoria has sung the praises of alpaca yarn but it is also a batting too.

Be careful when selecting natural fibers for your batting options. Some come with polyester scrims and can be poly-cotton blends. Look for 100% natural and organic batting and avoid bleached and dyed fibers. If you can get to know your supplier, just like at a farmers market, when you buy wool or alpaca, you’ll be able to ask questions about their process and their animals. They’ll be happy to share their process and you’ll be happy to know where your batt comes from.

Anyone ever try quilting with old blankets and sheets for batting? What about no batting?