The Beauty of Recycling

''Clothes are the 2nd largest source of pollution, after oil...''

Did you know that? Well it is not surprising considering that a pair of jeans with a t-shirt (which you very likely might be wearing right now) costs about 12.500 liters of water to produce, and that is just the water no transport and electricity in the equation yet a lot of resources to say the least, and unfortunately a lot of it goes to waste as things are thrown away once out of fashion.

A great solution? Buy 2nd hand, buy less, repair, give to someone who needs it. There is so much 2nd hand clothing that still 85% end up in landfills, which is just ridiculous.

We have always been extremely resourceful in re-using, repairing and recycling fabrics and clothing's for our own items and for those we sell.
Both our clothing and bag shop are 95% made out of vintage fabrics, recycled clothing etc, it is just very satisfying to give old things new life and to avoid things going to landfills.
But with each thing we make we always end up with small pieces of fabrics, these cuts end up in these 4 huge baskets. These baskets have been here for  more than 10 years and we constantly use fabric of them. We've made dozens of bags with patchworks out of these small pieces. Also inner pockets for the bags are chosen from here. But it never gets less as new pieces are also added all the time.

So in an attempt to get these baskets a little emptier Mum knitted fabric strips into this awesome bag. Just cutting the strips was already a lot of work but the result is gorgeous.

I hand stitched straps to them and added the lining, but the knitted part is of course the true labor of love part.

We love how it turned out, and even though a lot of fabric was used the basket doesn't seem emptier at all lol :)

So I came with the bright idea to make an ottoman with this knitted fabric, I will cut the fabrics and knot them to each other this time around. As it was my idea I will have to suffer some consequences too but this might actually make some difference in the stash of rags :)

9 Great Ways To Recycle Old Sweaters

So besides the obvious that re-cycling sweaters and any other textile product is good instead of trowing them away, another thing to think about: 1 kilogram of cotton can take up to 20.000 liters of water to produce (2 lb 2.3 oz cotton = 5283 gallons of water)! You can read more about the impact of cotton on the WWF website. This is about the amount needed for a pair of jeans and a t-shirt!

So not only our food takes a lot of water to produce but also our clothes. Thus another good reason to recycle clothes, and if you are not handy you can always find people in need or places to donate the clothes you want to toss away, and make someone else very happy with the things you do not use anymore.

Our clothing shop and bag shop are both 95% made of recycled materials, which feels good and the pieces become unique. This bag has an upcycled sweater top, we had more but they all sold as they all turned out very cool :)

• Make pet clothing and bedding out of old sweaters. We made a whole bunch of doggy sweaters as they are so expensive to buy, a win-win, great for our budget, warm doggies and recycled sweaters :) We made ours by cutting it according to Toffee's body but not all doggies will sit still like him so I found a few tutorials for you, here is one with good explanation and pictures, here is one made out of a sweater sleeve good for small doggies. I even found a tutorial on how to make a easy to make doggy (or kitty) bed out of a sweater.

Here some more ideas to recycle your sweaters:

• Keep your hands warm and toasty with mittens or fingerless gloves, find instructions here for the fingerless ones and here for the mittens. And here is another cool mitten pattern.

• Keep your feet warm with leg warmers (made of the arms), socks and slippers. If your sweater is 100% wool you can wash it warm in the machine first to get a nice thick felt for slippers. Here is one of many sock tutorials, and I love these slippers with a step by step explanation and these slippers are very cute :)

• I'm sure you have seen them before, knitted pillows. Often very expensive in shops and can be made free from upcycled sweaters. How adorable is that monster pillow? If you have a kid you could even make it of their favorite but now too small sweater so that s/he can still keep it! And here a tutorial on how to make a simple one for a cozy couch look.

• Cover some pencil holders and plant pots to cover up some ugly things or make baskets to hold your craft supplies and other things.

• Cover your old chairs with a beautiful old sweater or make poufs with a sweater and filling (you could fill them with old rags for an entirely eco friendly project).

• If you think that these are all cute and useful but you have a whole bunch of sweaters, how about a patchwork blanket, and they look super beautiful too! You can find a step by step tutorial here in case you have no idea where to begin with :)

• And if you still think that upcycling is too shabby or so, check this post on Country Living with beautiful decorative projects looking very chic! You can cover vases, lamp caps, anything you want!

• Once you have done your project(s) you will have a bunch of leftovers which are fun too, maybe these two will inspire you, adorable balls and mug cozies, and I'm sure your creative juices have started to flow, have fun and if you want to share your upcycling sweater project please share in the comments!

I limited my post with 9 ideas but there are many more like ear warmers, hats, bags, teapot cozies, you can get lots of ideas on Pinterest, you'll never throw away a sweater ever again!

See more recycle posts here, and more are coming up so stay tuned :)
And if you like this post, please share it on Pinterest!

New Shop: StarsWear!

A project that we have been wanting and planning to do so has finally been realized this weekend.
Our new shop StarsWear has finally been opened.

The concept will be close to our bag shop, StarBags, as most materials we'll use will be vintage, therefor most pieces will be one of a kind.

The first few pieces have already been listed, keep an eye on the shop for new pieces to come :)

Besides clothing we'll also list some textile accessories like scarves, cowls and more.
All will be repurposed, embellished, embroidered with vintage yummy materials.

Our Creative Space...

An other manipulated fabric bag made with smocked gingham.

Using gingham makes the smocking very easy. I also like the clean and structured look that it creates.

And here it is : the Granny Smith bag, fresh as the apple. Will be available soon in our bagshop.
Our giveaway is still going, incase you have missed it :)

See more creative spaces at Our Creative Spaces.

Our Creative Space...

As always we have many projects at hand, but we will show you the two latest ones.

Mum has been crochetting squares around vintage flowers. They will eventually become a bag, the backside will be with plain squares.

Each square is blocked to get the good shape, and after connecting them they are blocked again, this gives the bag a better shape. The bag will be nicely cream with a bit of pop of color.

In the mean time I wanted to used the small piece of scale fabric that was left of our mermaid bags project.

We first thought about a small cluth. But then I thought it would be fun to make a fish out of it, with the scales ready that should be fun.

After drawing the shape, cutting a tail from a silver piece of fake leather the fish was almost ready to swim.

It has a zipper on the top, and fish shaped chain as strap to wear it across your body, a real show stopper! It has a bubble patterned fabric as lining, definetly a one of a kind, soon in our bagshop!

See more creative spaces at Our Creative Spaces.

Our Creative Space...

Mum has been busy with another way of manupulating fabric.

Cut, fold and iron, cut fold and iron, and that dozens of time, would be better in winter time to warm up :)

When one row is finished everything gets stiched up to secure it, before starting on a new row.

But the result is wonderful!

The Mermaids Tail Bag is slowly getting in to shape, just a few finishing touches left before it will be up and running in our bagshop.

See more creative spaces at Our Creative Spaces.

Our Creative Space...

A very colorful creative space this week, while we are creating rainbows for this week's challenge of the EuropeanStreetTeam with the theme Rainbow! It will become a very happy tote once it is finished.

And more color and sunshine, while we are busy with our new jewelry line Green at Heart, you can see the first in our shop. They all will be a combination of vintage embroidery, felt and metal, with a floral theme.

And our biggest hobby, creating a huge mess :)...

See more creative spaces at Our Creative Spaces.

Our Creative Space...

Mum is busy with a bubble smock bag. And as it turned out that the fabric is tougher then anticipated, there is coming steam from her ears. It can be very frustrating when fun projects turn out in to a nightmare, but she will finish it, o yeah, no giving up :)

In the mean time I'm happy to tell you that I passed half of the tablecloth, by working on it for quite some hours every day. Still quite some left and then it will need to be washed, ironed, cut into a circle and the border, which I can't wait to show you!

A little fun in between project are these wrist spoilers, made with vintage velvet, antique handmade lace and other yummy stuff. They still need the leather finishing touches.

And I though you might want to see the bag of last week, which will be listed in our bag shop today or tomorrow, turned out great, if I may say so :)

You can see more workspaces at Kootoyoo's blog!