Craftiness part two

My desire to do crafts has become a little bit of a problem, and I’m having to limit myself to certain days and times, so that I can still do the other important things in my life.  But here are some of the fun craft projects I wanted to write about in my last crafty post:

I’m making a t-shirt quilt out of my old softball shirts.  This has been a project I have wanted to do for years.  I’ve never made a quilt before, and I’m still not sure how the actual quilting part is going to go, but I am loving the piecing so far.  It’s a good new use for my old shirts, because most of them were too ratty to be donated (or had my name on them).  After cutting the square out of the shirt, I’m cutting the rest of the shirt into strips for future rag rugs.

I wrote in my last post about my new love of crocheting.  There are so many different yarns out there, and there are some neat, earth-friendly types of yarn.  I’m attempting to buy those kinds of yarn for my projects (although I’m also using yarn from my mom’s giant stockpile).  There is organic cotton yarn, bamboo yarn, recycled cotton (made from scraps from manufacturing clothing), and recycled polyester (made from plastic bottles).  So far I’ve found the recycled polyester to be the most economic, but even that is still a little expensive, so I always use a 40% coupon from Jo-Ann’s – which fortunately I can get every week.

One of the cutest things I’ve ever made was a grocery bag for a friend of mine who was headed off to college.  I’m not the most patient person in the world, so I don’t always do well in making things look nice in sewing, but I tried really hard on this one.  Besides being handmade and being a reusable bag, there wasn’t really anything in the making of the bag itself that is particularly sustainable.  However, I love the pattern, so maybe next time I make one, I’ll find some ways to use earth-friendly materials.

The inspiration for my linen pinboard came from two different places.  First, the idea to even have one came from a Real Simple idea for organizing jewelry.  But the pinboards that Real Simple bought at Pottery Barn are ridiculously expensive, so I found a site with DIY instructions. (There are actually a ton of tutorials out there that say essentially the same thing – search “linen pinboard” and choose the one you like best.)  My pinboard consists of a bulletin board I got for $2 or $3 at Value Village, a linen-looking napkin for $1 at VV, and a bracket for wall-mounting for a couple of bucks at the fabric store.  I think the most expensive thing was actually the pretty pins that are used to hang the necklaces.  And by the way, most of the instructions say to use a staple gun, but I don’t have one and found that a regular stapler worked just fine in the cork.

There is a Web site called Crafting a Greener World that I haven’t had a chance to explore much yet, but it seems to be along the lines of the things I’ve posted above.  I’m not sure how I got linked to it – probably off of etsy.  Cool place to check out for more sustainable craft ideas!

Craftiness...

I have a running count in my head now, seemingly at all times.  I was folding towels: Fold the first towel.  One.  Fold the next towel.  Two.  It wasn't until the third towel that I realized what was going on.

You see I've been crocheting a lot lately, and I have to count stitches the entire time I am crocheting.  So apparently that has transferred over to other areas of my life.

What does crocheting have to do with a sustainable life?  Well, for starters, I'm embracing handmade as a really good thing.  I've started looking around, especially when I see something that I want or like, and I think, "I could make that."  That's not always true - I'm not an expert crafter - but usually I can make an attempt.  When you make something yourself (sometimes for cheaper than you could buy it), you know that it wasn't made in a sweatshop and you know what materials were used to make it.  It's kind of like cooking or baking - you know what ingredients went into the dish and you can control how much salt or oil go in.  And I've found it can be really satisfying!

I'll trace the path that I've taken to get here.  A dear friend bought me a present from etsy.com, "Your place to buy and sell all things handmade."  Over the last year or so, I look at etsy way too often for my own good and have bookmarked so many different sellers - either to buy their things or as inspiration.  (By the way, if you aren't crafty at all, supporting sellers on etsy is a great way to contribute to the handmade movement!)

Then, at some point, I think from rereading Little House on the Prairie or something, I got it into my head that I wanted to make a rag rug.  I searched the Internet for rag rug instructions; the best and easiest to follow were from This Vintage Chica.  But I had to relearn to crochet in order to accomplish this.  I pulled out my crochet hooks and instructions, and with a lot of help from my mom, I figured out how to do a basic single crochet - and it stuck this time.  I feel like I had an epiphany; I never really understood what I was doing before, and I finally do.

So I cut up some fabric and made my rag rug, and now I've been crocheting like crazy.  I really think I'm addicted - sometimes it's all I want to do (which is a problem when you have the rest of your life to attend to).  And making rag rugs is a great use for, well, rags, as well as scrap fabric from other projects - so it's recycling!

I had a lot more to write about crafting, but this post is getting long, so I think I will come back to the subject with info on the yarn I am using, the quilt I am making, the pinboard I made and some other fun sites related to this topic.  For now, I leave you with this crazy gallery of things to do with yarn and a picture of my finished rag rug.