Here's what I've been looking at this week while nursing Sydney, sitting in the back of the room during storytime at the library, or hiding in the bedroom during my 20-minute off-duty time when Matt gets home from work:
Threads is pretty much entirely over my head, but since I'm only really just becoming interested in sewing or altering clothes for myself--I sew quilts, things for the house, and clothes for the girls all the time, but subsist, myself, in thrift store clothes in which fit isn't always my main priority--I read it anyway, in search of a place to begin. A peasant top, perhaps?
I have a button machine that makes 1" buttons--I bought it because there's a terrific profit in buttons, since they're quick and easy to make and popular to sell--but I just as often make buttons to give as gifts or for Willow to wear or to put on my own backpack. I use a 1" hole punch to take button graphics out of magazines, picturebooks, or vintage papers, but being inspired by badbuttons.com, I'm trying to convince my partner, who is a grapic designer, to make me some awesome original designs.
by Tsia Carson, is a terrific DIY book that introduced a load of new projects to my to-do list: Kool Aid Yarn, Recycled Yarn, Bag o' Bags, Knit Hammock, Shrink Plastic Necklace, Button Cuff, Embroidered Screen Door, Rice Table, whew! Her pattern for T-shirt panties could very well be the trick I need to improve my own pattern, which for some reason results in panties that keep getting more granny-like every time I make them. She also has this terrific Web site, SuperNaturale, which has tutorials and showcases of designers and projects focused around a frugal and sustainable craft ethic. A lot of this stuff, obviously then, makes use of recycled materials.
Another encyclopedia-like book, and this one is vast, is The Crafter Culture Handbookby Amy Spencer. It has about a billion projects, many of them made from repurposed materials, and not just the obligatory refashioned T-shirts and button jewelry but also Chinese lanterns from colanders, brooches made from teeny fabric scraps, the pillowcase dress, and so on.
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