Isn't That Pinteresting? - 6

My pin this week is central to the very theme if this blog!  It leads to a wonderful post by Sarah at The Fuzzy Square, where the author condenses a ton of great ideas for recycling and upcycling clothing onto one easy and inspirational page.

As you know, I do not like to see clothing and textiles go into land fills.  I much prefer that they be donated to others, or, if you're of a creative bent, upcycled into another garment.  I have (literally, I think) a ton of clothing I need to get serious about refurbishing.  If I run out of ideas, this pin will jump start my creative engines, and I hope it inspires yours as well!  What are your favorite upcycle ideas?

Making Over Victoria: Laundry Rules

 One of the more minor decorating projects around the new home has been completing our laundry room. This is also temporary home to my sewing area – in the spring we hope to begin renovations to our 140 year old basement to put in a finished room down there which is planned to be my new sewing room.  The planned room will be large enough to accommodate an actual cutting table, as well as multiple sewing machines and ample fabric stash storage!

I believe this pretty much un-insulated laundry area was once an upper-level back porch, with its five bright windows, and near access to the back stairs.  I’m not sure when it was converted to a laundry, but that was the purpose the previous owners assigned to the room as well.  I think the it is coming out pretty cute, so I’d like to share a few pictures from the room… while not haute couture, I am sewing the curtains for this room, using one of the latest Pinterest trends, burlap and lace.  These are the completed valences.  The burlap was purchased from www.burlapfabric.com, and the lace was a yard sale find.  I scored a whole spool of it for pennies.  As you can see, there’s plenty left to complete the curtains, and then some.

This legless dresser was left behind by the previous owners of the home.  It makes a great place to store sewing supplies, and an equally nice window seat.  I’m planning on covering a cushion to make it even cozier.

While I lack a “before” picture, the walls in this room were formerly stark white. We definitely wanted to jazz things up a little, and we wanted to pay homage to the Victorian era without sacrificing modern convenience.  Corrugated galvanized steel roofing is the paneling we chose for the walls, with a periwinkle blue upper wall.  We first saw this used as a wall treatment in a regional fish fry restaurant. Galvanized buckets are used as light shades, and antique washboards, wringers, and clothes drying racks help to tie the theme together. 

We chose to stack our front loading washer and dryer because this saves floor space, and allows free access to the attic via the pulldown ladder in the ceiling of the laundry.  Please feel free to comment and let me know what you think about this room renovation.

Thanks for stopping by!

Wedding Jewelry

Today I'm working on something slightly different from the usual sewing projects.  I'm making jewelry for my upcoming handfasting in August.  I'm upcycling some old costume pearls,faceted glass beads, sterling chain and findings into a new, collar style necklace, with matching earrings and footwear.  Here's a peek at the beginning of the necklace.  I'll post the finished piece soon!

Butterick 4228 Sneak Peek

Hi everyone!  Hope your weekend was fantastic!  I hit some garage sales on Friday, and I plan to share my haul with you later in the week.  The rest of the weekend was pretty laid back, but I managed to get some sewing done on Butterick 4228.  The skirt is almost complete, so here are a couple of sneal peek pictures.

Well, just the zipper!  Just hooks and hems left on the skirt, with the top left to go!

Also, I have a new post up at SewMantra on getting out of a sewing or crafting slump.  Please stop by there to see it and make my day by leaving a comment!  Thanks!

Lessons From the Past:2 - Shirt Shuffle

The Make and Mend for Victory book has been so much fun to read, and such an inspiration.  I have always been interested in reuse of discarded or unwanted fabrics, but this book has helped me to see things through my grandmother's eyes even a little bit more than before.  Having been a young woman during the Great Depression and WW2, she knew how to pinch a penny until there were tears in Abe's eyes!

I stopped into our local Salvation Army store the other day and picked up two old men's shirts.  Both are large sized.  One was $2.99 and the other $4.99.  And, of course, you may have a stock of worn out men's shirts at your disposal for free!

I have plans to modify these into women's blouses, but another chapter of Make and Mend for Victory had me looking at the many other potential garments hiding within these shirts.  Many of you have young children.  These shirts are ideal for making all kinds of garments for the little ones! Again, patterns of the day are used in these layouts, but modern patterns would work as well if you haven't a source (or the budget) for vintage patterns.

I hope this gives you some great ideas, as it did me!  Happy sewing!

Shared on Frugally Sustainable.

UFOs

I'm sure you're quite aware that I speak not of the alien spaceship, but of the ever troublesome Unfinished Object. Recently, The Sew Weekly did a UFO challenge, and, inspired, I dusted off one of my own UFOs to complete. I have to acknowledge that I have quite a few of these, and so I began thinking about the psychology behind all those unfinished projects.

Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, captures the guilt associated with confronting UFOs, in a 2010 article for Psychology Today.  She says that "the thought “I should finish that…why haven’t I finished that?” makes [her] flinch". I have to agree, when I come across my little unfinished gems hidden in my fabric stashes, the feeling that I most often become aware of is guilt. The wastefulness of having cut into perfectly good fabric, but not completing the garment, seems almost sinful.

One theory about UFOs comes from the world of ADD literature, where it seems to be assumed that a body simply becomes distracted by other brighter and shinier projects. In other words, once the excitement of the initial phase of the project has worn off, the sewist just moves on to something else. While that may be the case for some people, I think my own answer lies elsewhere.

I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist. "Researchers have identified six major dimensions of perfectionism—extreme concern over making mistakes, high personal standards, the perception of high parental expectations and criticism, doubting the quality of one’s actions, and preference for order and organization". This describes me to a "T". I often fear that my work will be judged lacking if it is not absolutely perfect. Hence, most of my UFOs tend to be garments that challenge me, or require some skill or technique I've not yet perfected.

My plan for reducing my UFO guilt is to commit to pulling out these projects and completing them, or salvaging what I can, and moving on. My plan is to do one of these in between each new project taken on. I'm sure I'll learn some good skills along the way, and hopefully gain confidence as well. Perfection, after all, is an illusion that is not realistically attainable. And, I plan to bring you along for the ride to keep me motivated to follow through. Thanks, in advance, for your support. Tomorrow, the first of the UFOs!

References
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-happiness-project/201002/finish-the-projects-you-ve-started-or-call-end-them

http://adderworld.ning.com/forum/topics/the-saga-of-unfinished-projects

http://positivepsychologynews.com/news/eleanor-chin/200909154085

Hi!

Welcome to the Seams Sustainable blog. This is an off-shoot of my home-based business, which is clothing design and munufacture, using as many recycled and upcycled materials and embellishments as possible. I also do custom sewing (costumes for dance and historical re-enactment, formal wear, wedding attire, etc.) and I give sewing lessons, including lessons in clothing repair - an essential sustainability skill. The blog will give me a forum to share some of these things with you, and will probably frequently digress into other topics that interest me (and I hope some of them will interest you, too!). Just a few of these interests are sustainable living, frugality, gardening, cooking, Pagan spirituality, jewelry making, paper crafts, quilting and creativity. I sound like a granola crunching Grandma Moses (well, ok, I do like granola!), but I'm actually just learning about a lot of these things, so if I "say" something that doesn't sound quite right, please join in the conversation and help me out here!