Green Patchwork

I have had a lot of people looking at my posts about felted sweater crafting, and realize that I should include a post about recycling the actual wool sweater for the yarn. Quality wool yarn is pretty expensive, but if one were to buy a nice wool sweater at the thrift store for about $7 and unravel it you could potentially get about 2 pounds of yarn which would cost almost $80 new at the yarn stores. (I’m basing that on a 3.5oz.  skein of Irish wool yarn I bought recently for $9.50.) Read the rest of this entry »

After a Capri Sun juice drink is drunk the container gets thrown away and sits in a landfill for decades or centuries. When I was a kid I loved these juice drinks and their convenience, but I never thought about what happened to them once I threw them away. Kids love these drinks and I bet if we went to a local elementary school we would find tons of these empty containers in the trash.

A women’s cooperative in the Philippines has found a useful solution for these bags and created a business out of it, called Doy Bags. They collect, wash, sanitize, sort, and sew these drink containers into functional bags that are also stylish and fun. The cooperative uses the bright colors and designs of the drink containers to their advantage by sorting and sewing them accordingly.

Wild Child kid’s clothing store on Monroe St. has a good selection of Doy Bags if you would like to have a look at them up close and see for yourself how unique they are. Renee at Wild Child uses her personal oversized Doy Bag totes for grocery shopping.

Many years ago I decided to wrap all of my X-mas gifts in decorative scarves and fabrics, and I was thought of as an extreme environmentalist. But now if I wrap a gift in fabric or a fancy silk scarf most people appreciate the extra attention to their gift and think i’m being creative (and not just a crazy hippie).

I love receiving gifts wrapped in unique fabrics and luckily the trend has picked up speed. I was just browsing the Inhabitat site and found a posting on silk scarves being sold as something to wrap gifts in, similar to a furoshiki. I hope you don’t start thinking you have to only use fancy silk scarves as wrapping material, because you can use any interesting fabric that you find to wrap a gift. Check out thrift stores or buy a yard of fabric at the craft stores to use for wrapping a present. Handkerchiefs and bandannas work great too and are always appreciated when someone catches a cold.

If you have been wondering what to do with a broken umbrella or your jeans that are beyond patching then look no further, ReadyMade Magazine is packed with ideas for what to do with stuff that is broken or you just don’t know what to do with it.

Every by-monthly issue has a challenge for people to find new uses for broken or out of date stuff. Last issue’s challenge was to find a new use for broken umbrellas. Two women from Madison,Wi had the idea of creating a magazine rack out the umbrella frame and fabric. Next issue’s challenge is to find a new use for a broken suitcase.

Many years ago I made the switch to alternative menstrual products such as cotton cloth pads and a menstrual cup. I never have to buy plastic disposable pads and I don’t even think about nasty tampons. When I first made the connection that along with my monthly flow was a lot of unnecessary waste I decided I needed to change my monthly routine. Think of all the garbage women create every month and how much of an impact we can make just by changing how we control our flows. Read the rest of this entry »

In the early 1800’s flour, sugar, seed, rice, and fertilizer were sold in large woven cloth bags that resourceful farmer’s wives used for dish cloths, diapers, nightgowns and other household uses. Manufacturers started offering these sacks in many different patterns and solid colors to encourage customer loyalty. It took 3 identical feedsacks to make 1 dress and a farmer’s decision to buy from certain manufacturers could be swayed by this one reason.

This is a great example of how people reused utilitarian materials to create new objects that could be used in the home. Read more about the history of feedsacks to learn more about this popular trend.

Wool sweaters are great! They are warm and durable and last a long time and when they are too far gone to wear anymore you can turn them into new things like bags, blankets, slippers, mittens, or hot pads for the kitchen. You can get wool sweaters from thrift stores and craft them into something new and useful. Or, if you find a wool sweater that is too big you can shrink it in the washer and stretch any part of it before it dries. I found a tutorial some time back on how to make a sweater bag, I haven’t made it yet but it looks fun. Let me know if you try it.

I haven’t bought paper towels or disposable napkins in years. I bought a few sets of cloth napkins at Savers Thrift Department Store many years ago and I’m still using them. We use them when we have messy buy yummy tofu-walnut burgers (Nature’s Bakery) or any other kind of mouth messing foods. We were just gifted with new French terry cloth napkins in various beautiful colors. Read the rest of this entry »