Green Options

Summer is here! That means cookouts, porch parties, and backyard picnics! You can fancy up your next outdoor shindig with this easy peasy fabric scrap banner. Here’s what you need to make one:

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And then, my friends, I bought some big books of outdated upholstery fabric samples at my local thrift shop (its name, I swear to you, is Thrift Shop), and I have just been crafting the crap out of that stuff!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 am cheap. Cheap, cheap, cheap. Oh, and also eco-friendly, but mainly just cheap.

My favorite thing about the D.I.Y. lifestyle is that it’s also a thrifty lifestyle. It’s inspiring to take an unwanted, perhaps even damaged material something that someone else might discard or donate, and turn it into something that’s beautiful and useful again.

Take those sweet, knitted or crocheted afghans that I’m always coming across in thrift stores or dumpster-diving, or that often get re-gifted to me because I like handmade stuff.

I respect the love and time that goes into the act of knitting and crocheting, and the dedication, especially, that it takes to create an entire afghan, but frankly, I have enough of my own already, and I don’t necessarily need another one, especially if it’s just so-so or (gasp!) ugly.

An entire afghan, though? That’s a nice, large swatch of material to work with. I’ve been sewing up a storm with my thrifted and re-gifted afghan stash, lately, making some simple summer dresses for my little girls. Here are some tips so that you, too, can sew with knitted or crocheted materials–it’s not as tricky as it seems:

After I saw this I decided there is no way I am letting my husband donate his old dress shirts to Goodwill ever again.  At least not until I have made a dress shirt quilt for my son.  How endearing for a son to have a quilt made from his father’s dress shirt?  Repurposed denim quilts always seemed a little too country for my tastes, but a dress shirt quilt can be as modern as the shirts used to make it.

Fleece isn’t a natural fabric, but it is vegan, is often (although it’s just as often nearly impossible to tell when) partially to completely made from recycled plastic bottles, and has many of the same qualities of wool, in that it’s breathable and wicks moisture away from the skin. It doesn’t readily hold stains, doesn’t ravel, is thin and light and yet soft and plush, and can be washed easily.

It’s one of the staple fabrics that, as a cloth diapering momma, I bought every time it was on sale. Only now? All my babies are toilet trained, and I still have, pardon my French, a butt-load of fleece.

One of the things that I like to do as an eco-friendly crafter and that I like to teach my children as a natural parent is to remember to have respect for our stuff. We should keep only what we can use or enjoy, and we should use and enjoy what we have. Thus I need to either use or lose my fleece stash, and that’s my goal this week.

Fortunately, the same qualities that make fleece an excellent material for cloth diapers also make it an excellent material for a light and comfortable matress pad. Additionally, it comes in a width that’s perfect for my queen-sized bed and workable for my daughters’ full-sized bed, and the sewing on it will be absolutely minimal because fleece doesn’t ravel–just cut it to shape, throw on some elastic, and we’ll be good to go. Here’s how:

It’s no secret that I love sewing with vintage fabric. Linens and remnants from back in the day just feel like they have a story attached to them. Not only are you giving something old a brand new life, you get to add to its history.

Sometimes it’s a bit tricky to track down a good variety of vintage fabric, but Megan over at Moxie makes it a bit easier with her fantastical selection of vintage fabrics!

Remember this fabulous Forsythia linen swatch I ordered from Cicada Studio? Well,
thanks to Ohdeedoh’s post about de-branding the kitchen counter with pretty canisters, I was inspired to make over my stainless steel canisters. I love stainless steel, but it can seem very clinical. I decided to warm up my canisters with linen cozies. Read on for the complete how-to…

Sewing pattern tissue has a great graphic quality.  If you have some vintage or used sewing patterns laying around, consider reusing them for art, home decor, jewelry, or anything else you can decoupage.  Here are a bunch of inspiring ideas for reusing sewing pattern tissue paper.

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.

Self-proclaimed crazy selvedge lady, Jodie Carleton of Vintage RicRac, never lets a scrap go to waste.  Not even the selvedge.  She developed her own process for turning fabric selvedge into “cloth”.  She has used selvedge to make everything from a dress to pillow covers.  Her latest project was this selvedge reupholstered chair.  I have never been so inspired to be more creative and less wasteful.

Nevermind that I couldn’t draw a lifelike picture to save my life–I bought the whole family little sketchbooks for Christmas, including myself (don’t you love presents that you buy for yourself? Of course, you could also make a book, if you’ve a mind to). A sturdy black cover, an elastic band to hold it shut, and pages and pages wonderfully blank.

At first I wasn’t terribly certain what I would do with my sketchbook. But working beside my little girls, as they sat down to draw pictures in their books, I had to do something with my hands, so I started to make a list.

It’s the best thing that ever happened to my craft work.

A little sketchbook that you can carry around, and a little roll of colored pens: this is all you need to record inspiration as it happens.

Here’s what you can write in one: