Green Options

Craft show season is getting close, and that means all of you green crafty biz owners are probably working overtime to get merch ready for the upcoming fall shows! Any sort of repetitive action is tough on your body, and crafting is no different. Rather than pop an over the counter pain medication, why not take some time to relax and stretch the soreness away with some yoga poses targeted at the places that take the most abuse?

As with any new exercise, please be cautious and consult your doctor before trying anything too terribly strenuous.

This week’s set of poses is for the seamstresses. These are postures aimed at stretching and strengthening those sore arms, legs and feet, and upper back and neck that take a beating after hours over the sewing machine, the cutting table, and the ironing board.

The one thing I have always wanted to learn how to do, but have never gotten around to it, is sewing. Sure I can do the basics like stitch a seam back together or sew a button back on but when it comes to using a sewing machine…I am totally intimidated. I don’t even know where to start.

I don’t want my daughter’s creativity to be thwarted like mine. Not being able to sew has limited my crafty creations. I design a lot of things, many which never come in being because I can’t sew.

The book Sew with Sara: PJs, Pillows, Bags & More–Fun Stuff to Keep, Give, SELL! is a great way to get my daughter interested in sewing.

When the Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced that it was deaccessioning part of its textile collection, artist Robert Fontenot was on the scene. He hit up three separate auctions and acquired 50 pieces, almost half of the items the museum was getting rid of. The resulting work is sometimes arty, sometimes functional, and all beautiful! He embroiders the accession number into each finished piece.

The project is still a work in progress, and I just love this quote from his artist’s statement: “Although each item has not yet been used, each item can have a use.” Yes! I think that can apply to materials in a much larger sense, and his work is a fantastic reminder that old pieces can take on a whole new life with just a little bit of love.

Want to get your upcycle on? Thrift stores and even the back of your closet are full of textiles that can take on a whole new life! Here are a few ideas to get you going:

Fairfield, the makes of Poly-fil have gone green adding a whole new line of eco-friendly products to help green your fiber arts and crafts.

You can now quilt green, stuffyour little critters in an eco-friendly way and have bamboo pillows.

Nature-Fil batting, fiberfill and pillow forms now come in bamboo options and natural fiberfill is made out of both bamboo and PLA corn materials.

I’m always on the lookout for creative uses for t-shirts. We have a bunch collecting dust in our closets and they are readily available at resale shops.

We’ve all heard about the shirt quilt (it’s fun to make for a new college student’s dorm room), but what about curtains, valance, bedskirt, children’s clothing, diapers or dresses?

Martha Stewart has a fabulous idea for making a reusable shopping tote out of t-shirts. What a fun way to reuse all those souvenir and college tee’s.  This bag is simple to make:

As part of the Pretty Little series, Pretty Little Potholders has step-by-step instructions and some patterns for several very different kinds of potholders.

Since I won’t be wearing any of these potholders, this crafty green book review, unlike my review of Weekend Sewing or The Crafty Chica’s Guide to Artful Sewing, doesn’t have to think about whether or not the patterns are appropriate for my body. Instead, I’ll look at whether the patterns look like something I would actually want to make for myself or for gifts.

I’m also interested, in this review, in how amenable the patterns and instructions are to the use of natural or recycled materials. Are natural or recycled materials asked for, or, even if they’re not, can I easily see places in which they could be substituted?

Here, then, is what I decided about Pretty Little Potholders.

[Image Credit: Creative Commons photo by wowcool]

We love a good mix tape remix around here. Heck, some of us even knit with used cassettes. Seamstresses, don’t you fret! You can get in on the recycled cassette action, too…

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:

Do you ever think I will run out of weird stuff to do to vinyl record albums? As a crafter who works primarily with recycled materials, I find vinyl records especially inspirational: they’re rigid yet can be malleable, you can incorporate the song titles and album title into your piece or not, you can cut and drill them, you can paint them, you can do things with them that I haven’t even thought about yet, and I’ve thought about it a lot.

Although my bread-and-butter is the ubiquitous record bowl, I’ve made everything from jewelry to artwork with these babies. If only I could bring to them my love of fabrics, especially the ones in those big sample books of upholstery fabric that I bought at a charity thrift store a few months ago and have been so obsessed with…

Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

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: