Green Options

So, now that you’ve made a nice kid a nice sweater skirt or a couple of nice diaper covers out of that nice (but ill-fitting) old sweater that you’ve been hanging on to, you still have some of that sweater left.

You have the sleeves, for one thing, and the shoulder and neckline that connects those sleeves.

And that, my friends, is exactly what you need to make that nice kid a nice pair of matching leggings to go with her skirt or her diaper covers.

This tutorial utilizes the crotch curve line from a pair of your kid’s own well-fitting pants–using that curve, and applying your kid’s waist and length measurements, you can create a warm, comfy, nicely-fitting pair of leggings that would go well layered with anything else in your winter wardrobe.

Here’s how:

Technically, my girls do have enough clothes. Frankly, thanks to my loves for thrifting and sewing, they have a shameful amount of clothes, from vintage band shirts to hand-sewn bloomers. However, every now and then one child or the other suffers a lack of some thing in her wardrobe.

For my younger daughter, Sydney, who is as roughneck as any little kid but who adores skirts and dresses, this lack came about with the chill autumn breeze, when I realized that she didn’t have any skirts or dresses that were made for cool weather.

Fortunately, if there’s one thing that I have a shameful stash of, it’s vintage or thrifted fabric and clothing for reconstrution.

Sweaters are so nice and soft and comfy, why on earth should they be worn only on one’s top half? I often felt wool sweaters that I thrift or am given to make everything from stockings to stuffies, but for the sweaters that are especially beautiful or especially soft (mmm, vintage cashmere), I have a special use—if they’re big enough, and while my girls are small enough, I make skirts for my girls out of the sweater torsos.

The nice thing about sewing for kids is that their clothes take so little fabric. A shirt or pair of pants for a five-year-old, a dress for a three-year-old, matching bloomers for both–you could sew any of these things using less than a yard of fabric.

For that reason, kids’ clothes are very well-suited for sewing with recycled materials. I’ve sewed smocked sundresses for my girls out of pillowcases, a pants and kimono shirt outfit for a newborn out of one blouse, two sturdy diaper covers out of a felted wool sweater.

I was afraid of sewing from a pattern when I was a novice seamster, ironically, but now that I sew well, I enjoy using patterns to create more complicated clothing with attractive detailing and sophisticated elements. And so, although they’re pricey, I do buy some of the children’s clothing patterns from Oliver + S each season.

Unlike the sawdust dough, the sand dough, and even the oil dough, the cornstarch dough uses no flour, but instead calls for cornstarch and salt. This makes a good play dough for someone who might be sensitive to most flours, or perhaps to use up some more of that cornstarch that I keep making you buy for other art supply recipes.

Unlike the other dough recipes that I’ve shared, as well, this dough does require cooking over low heat, which actually most play dough recipes do require. It’s just something to be aware of when you have little helpers on hand.

You will need:

You can make play dough a gazillion kabillion six million ways. Trust me—I have made play dough from laundry lint, and thusly I know my stuff.

As the packrat/eccentric lady/aficionado of bizarre craft projects and art experiences, I am the designated inheritor of a myriad of passed-down recipes for homemade art materials from both sides of my family. And having two little girls with a lot of time on their hands and a love for anything messy and hands-on, we have taken it as a project to make pretty much every recipe at one time or another. For my next few posts, I’ll be sharing with your our favorite and most unusual of the recipes we’ve collected.

First up: Do you have any sawdust?

I could tell you all the educational reasons for making soap crayons—children’s learning should be experiential, experience with art should be as varied as possible, following a recipe utilizes math concepts, making something that you can use builds self-confidence and self-sufficiency, having a brand-new experience along with an adult adds adventure and models coping—but the truth is just that soap crayons are fun. You’re in the bath, so you’re supposed to be getting clean, but you’re drawing! With color! But the crayons, they’re soap! So you’re still getting clean!

Who would not have fun attempting to wrap their head around that?

To make soap crayons, you will need:

Often when my daughters were very, very young, and even now that they’re older as a special treat, I like to set them up to fingerpaint in the bathtub. It’s certainly an art activity that’s more about the process than the product, since the fun is in smearing around and mixing and getting oneself all paint-y and colorful. And when they’re done painting, there’s more fun involved in using the handheld shower nozzle to give everything a good rinse before settling down for a nice bath.

To make clean-up just that much easier, or just to provide a different sensory experience or have a fun time following a recipe, you can also try making your own fingerpaints from soap. 

I check out a lot of craft books from my public library, and when I happen to have a little extra cash on hand, I might buy one of my favorites. I rarely follow the instructions or tutorials inside just exactly, however–I always tweak them to fit within the boundaries of my Green Crafting Manifesto. The way I evaluate a book, then, is dependent on the following criteria:

How amenable is the book to using (or how easy are the instructions to modify to include) natural or recycled materials?

How appropriate is the book’s sizing for my body, if it includes adult clothing projects (I have a 42″ chest, a 36″ waist, and I’m 5′2″)?

How reader-friendly are the instructions (I have at least the basic skills for any craft, with my best skills being in sewing, probably, but since I’m self-taught in everything there are often huge gaps in my knowledge)?

Here, then, based on those criteria, is my review of Weekend Sewing, by Heather Ross:

I’ve seen a tutorial or two for reverse appliqué, and one of the best things, that everybody always mentions, is how terrific reverse appliqué is for repairing small stains or holes in clothes. Unlike traditional applique, which puts the applique material on top of the article of clothing, reverse applique puts this material underneath, and the clothing on top of it is cut away. Applique, in all its design cuteness, works especially well for children’s clothes, I think—I’m kind of butch, so I’m hesitant about putting a reverse appliquéd flower or heart or whatever into my own paint-stained jeans, but I’m totally fine about putting all that, and silhouettes of ponies or butterflies or dinosaurs or whatever, into my girls’ clothes.

The technique for putting a reverse appliqué into jersey or T-shirt material, however, is a little different from your run-of-the-mill reverse appliqué, and the technique for putting a reverse appliqué into a narrow piece of material, such as a sleeve or a pants leg or even a small child’s T-shirt, is trickier yet. Here, though, is exactly how to go about it:

I’ve been loving on these birthday crowns for a very long time, now, but because of my concerns about wool felt, I hadn’t been able to make any for my little girls. I tend to try to rely on the natural properties of a fabric instead of using interfacing, which can be an environmentally unfriendly material (although I will use it when I need to–stuff is there to be consumed when necessary, although ideally not consumed when not necessary), and there’s just nothing like wool felt for sturdiness and rich texture.

And then, my friends, I bought some big books of outdated upholstery fabric samples at my local thrift shop (its name, I swear to you, is Thrift Shop), and I have just been crafting the crap out of that stuff!

Birthday crowns, crayon rolls, scrapbooking embellishments, wall art, bookmarks–upholstery samples are the perfect size for any of these small projects, their paper backing renders them stiff and sturdy and less prone to fraying, their gorgeous patterns and textures give impact and personality to small-scale creations, and they’re sold in books of complementary fabrics and colors, allowing you to make a huge number of mitchy-matchy items.

Here are some tricks I’ve found for sewing specifically with upholstery samples–I swear, you’ll love it!

I’ve always been a total tightwad and pretty hardcore DIY, so other than the fact that my pension basically hit the floor last year, I’m remaining chill even in these trying economic times. One of the total tightwad/hardcore DIY activities that I enjoy doing at the beginning of every season is taking a look at my little girls’ wardrobes for the upcoming months, passing down what’s ready to be passed down, altering what can be altered to make it more seaonally appropriate, mending anything that’s torn or stained, and lengthening anything that my girls have grown out of.

Admittedly, I just love to sew for my kids, but even if you don’t, this method of lengthening your kiddo’s pants will give you months’ more service out of pants that are too short but still fit fine in the waist, and it really is quick and pretty easy. Of course, get ready to do it again in just a few months, because kids? They grow like weeds.