Fly - Green Girl
A Craftier Shade of Green
by Kelly Bryan Smith
June 11, 2008
Green Girl recently found herself roaming the aisles of the fabric store. She hoped to find eco-friendly options for making a patchwork baby quilt for Junior Green Girl. She was excited to find quilt batting made from bamboo fibers
but not much else. Yes, it can be hard to find green products at our corporate craft chains, but before you lose hope, poke around in Jacksons thrift stores, online, in grandmas attic and even in your own closet for inspiration.
Brand-new standard-issue fabrics raise some red flags. Half of the worlds pesticide use goes toward growing cotton, and synthetic fabrics have petroleum as an ingredient. Both natural and synthetic fibers are then dyed with toxic chemicals to make that sweet little teddy bear print. If you cant avoid the standard choices at the fabric store, wash your fabric in a full load with similar colors using an environmentally friendly detergent. (I use Methods Free Plus Clear 3X concentrated detergent.) Repeat several times to wash away the harmful chemicals. Otherwise, look online or around town for organic cotton, hemp and bamboo alternatives and vintage fabrics. These days, you can even find polar fleece made from recycled plastic bottles.
Half of Green Girls fabric comes from her grandmas former fabric stash. She also likes to repurpose fabric which is not in use around the house. For Mr. Green Girls birthday, she made a patchwork quilt, using his ratty old T-shirts for material. (Green Girl likes patchwork quilts because she is an excellent sewer of straight lines.) The strips of fabric in between the T-shirt squares are from an old sheet set. The backing is an old plaid tablecloth. Even if you dont have such things around the house, look at the thrift store. At a place like N.U.T.S., you can find a huge bed sheet for less than a dollar. And wouldnt that retro print make a fun skirt or tote bag?
Yarn can be problematic for the same reasons as fabric (pesticides, petroleum and dyes). The good news is that you can often find yarn at the thrift store from projects other folks gave up on. Or if you want to buy new, there are great options out there in addition to organic cotton and wool. Many eco-conscious companies are now marketing beautiful yarns made from soy, banana fibers, bamboo, hemp, corn and even recycled silk saris.
Some enterprising crafters use the cheap and abundant source of plastic grocery bags to make their own recycled fibers. To make yarn, cut plastic grocery bags in long strips of your desired thickness and tie end to end. Then knit or crochet to make durable, waterproof bags perfect for reusable grocery bags. Other folks iron several plastic grocery bag layers together between waxed paper to make a thicker plastic sheet that can be sewed into tote bags, or wallets or whatever else you can come up with.
To get even more creative, think outside yarn and fabric crafts. What objects do you have in abundance that might otherwise get thrown away or tossed into the recycling bin? What could you make from old wine corks, for example, empty toilet paper tubes, dryer lint or plastic hummus tubs? How can you creatively save some money and the planet?
In Houston, there is a house covered in old aluminum beer cans as siding. There are instructions online for making sandals from old tires.
The only limit to what you can make is your own imagination.
Local Resources
N.U.T.S.
114 Millsaps Avenue
601-355-7458
Orange Peel
3026 N State St.
601-364-9977
Online Resources
Fabrics
organiccottonplus.com/index.html
rickrack.com/
hartsfabric.com/ecofriendly.html
Yarns
mangomoonyarns.com/
blueskyalpacas.com/
soysilk.com/yarn.html
Other Craft Ideas:
replayground.com/index.asp
eco-artware.com/crafts/archive.php
instructables.com/
posted by on 06/11/08 at 04:41 PM. [printer-friendly version]
COMMENTS
Will New Palin 'Racially Tinged' Attacks Backfire on McCain?
Walt: Based on the last 8 years I believe the so-called maverick and averick (Palin) are planning to further deform Washington. Would any of us let a wild bear ...
Oct 06, 2008 | 04:22 PM
Will New Palin 'Racially Tinged' Attacks Backfire on McCain?
jeff lucas: For two people/"mavericks" that claim they want to reform Washington, they have an odd way of going about it.
Oct 06, 2008 | 04:11 PM
Will New Palin 'Racially Tinged' Attacks Backfire on McCain?
Walt: The fact of the matter is that republicans expect the people to wake up one day soon and declare republicans totally full of crap as I have already done and ...
Oct 06, 2008 | 03:51 PM
Oops, Another Fake McCain-Palin Debate Ad Slips Through
Walt: I'm quite hopeful that Palin did in fact kill something - McCain's and her chance at ever becoming the president and vice-president respectively.
Oct 06, 2008 | 03:49 PM
Will New Palin 'Racially Tinged' Attacks Backfire on McCain?
baquan2000: It's all good brotha! Check out this comment from http://www.cnn.com/2 008/SHOWBIZ/books/10/06/t homas.frank/index.html CNN: Do Republicans and ...
Oct 06, 2008 | 03:44 PM
Will New Palin 'Racially Tinged' Attacks Backfire on McCain?
Walt: My apology to all. I'm just having a little fun without stooping too low, I hope. I try to joke tastefully, but I've been told I don't have any taste or ...
Oct 06, 2008 | 03:30 PM
Will New Palin 'Racially Tinged' Attacks Backfire on McCain?
baquan2000: Walt you get an official, Dave Chappelle say's it best - Rick James influenced - "Cooooooollllldddd Bloodeeedddddd!"
Oct 06, 2008 | 03:10 PM
Will New Palin 'Racially Tinged' Attacks Backfire on McCain?
Walt: Palin is no maverick, she's just "averick". Too average to be vice president or guvner, I think. Wink, wink, pose, arch, bend, thrust, grin; then, talk loud ...
Oct 06, 2008 | 03:04 PM
Will New Palin 'Racially Tinged' Attacks Backfire on McCain?
baquan2000: But, I hope you guys know that the RNC is calling for an audit of Obama campaign donations!? Rumor has it, that some Saudi's have been financing his ...
Oct 06, 2008 | 02:53 PM
Will New Palin 'Racially Tinged' Attacks Backfire on McCain?
ladd: While she's out slinging mud, Palin has all sorts of problems on her homefront (where folks are angry that the McCain campaign is running the governor's ...



16