More New Findings

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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