Want to keep the summer memories alive, but your fav souvenir T-shirt is past its “best before” date? With just a few basic sewing or crochet skills, you can “upcycle” that tee into a cool new purse or handbag, grocery bag, big soft tote… the possibilities are endless…

Repurposed T-Shirt Market Bags

Great for beginners, Deborah Schlegel’s market tote (shown above) is an eco-friendly alternative to nasty plastic grocery bags. The tote has a boxy bottom and sturdy straps long enough to go over your shoulder for easily carrying.

Deborah uses selected cool tees from the Goodwill store to sew her market totes. Adult size makes a big roomy tote, but you can just as easily downsize the bag by using a child’s size shirt to make your own. [tutorial]

T-Shirt Hobo Tote Bag

Inspired by YakPak, this is a nice curvy tote bag with a softly gathered bottom and a neat edging at the top that curves to become the purse straps.

Sew a small pocket inside for important incidentals (you could make the interior pocket the right size to fit your phone, for example, so no need to go fishing around in the bottom of the bag when you get an unexpected text!). Smart sewing tip: use the hem of the T-shirt for the straps for the bag! [tutorial]

Upcycled T-Shirt Bag with Braided Handles

Who would have thought a recycled T-shirt handbag could be so elegant?

This simple rectangular bag from Leanne Garrity on the Chichidee label is distinguished by smart t-shirt/fabric choice that gives an art-piece look, and by its braided handles, also made of t-shirt fabric. [tutorial]

p.s. If you want one of these bags quite desperately but aren’t in the mood to sew your own, you can pick up a Chichidee tee bag for £22.00 at Folksy.

T-Shirt Sling Bag

You know how much gear kids always need to take along on an adventure? Here’s the solution! This sturdy little drawstring bag by Brassy Apple is made from double layers of a repurposed t-shirt (child size), with a diagonal strap to sling it over the shoulder for hands-free carrying – think “soft backpack” here! [tutorial]

Crochet a Recycled Tee-Shirt Bag

Cut your old shirt in a continuous strip to make soft “yarn” for this clever crochet project. Cindy used two tees to make this sample, with extra for contrasting stripes and a decorative flower. Crocheting with t-shirt material makes the bag soft and durable – and it’s easy to clean. Just toss it into the washing machine! [pattern]

Trashion T-shirt Hobo Bag

OutsaPop’s choice of a pirate-themed black t-shirt makes this bag a sure-fire hit with the teens we know. I like the sophisticated touch of the fabric-wrapped handles. This particular bag design makes great use of the full t-shirt, too – almost nothing leftover to go to waste. Big and slouchy, just like a tee (bag) is meant to be! [tutorial]

Your turn!

Hey, if you decide to go for any of these great upcycling projects, please leave a comment below to inspire us all with your crafty goodness! Or maybe you’ve got a T-shirt bag design of your own to share? I’d love to see your ideas!

Can we forgive a semi-tacky website, if it’s showcasing a very cool product? Yep, when it’s NeatSheets –  “as seen on TV,” as the saying goes. And what the heck are NeatSheets, you may well ask? 

Fitted bed sheets with a side pocket! 

Two pockets, actually, with elastic at the top… a bit like some models of recliners are made with a pocket on the outer side to hold your magazines and empty chip bags. Same concept. Except, of course, in a fitted sheet.

Now, this just makes such good sense to me – pockets to stash all that stuff your cat likes to knock off the nightstand, like tissues, phone, flashlight, iPod, all that kind of can’t-go-to-bed-without-it stuff. You can keep all your necessaries so conveniently close to hand, if you’re lounging in bed on the weekend or home sick with the sniffles. And for me, as for other writers, who doesn’t love the idea of a convenient place to stash your notebook and pen –  you know, for those middle of the night inspirations?

Prices start at $50 US for twin size, which is certainly not out of line for 200-plus thread count cotton bedding with French seams and all that sort of dainty detail. Your friendly neighbourhood  Domestik Goddess has no problem shelling out the clams for a lovely set of sheets – if sheets are actually needed.

But what if you’ve already got enough sheets, and you’re just craving those pockets?

Idea: DIY Bed Sheet Pockets

She who walks on the frugal side – and/or has limited space for linens storage – might think about just taking a fitted bed sheet already on hand and adding a handy pocket to the side. 

Even a beginner at sewing can hem a rectangle, fold it over at one long edge to make a casing for a piece of elastic, and sew the pocket onto the side of a fitted sheet. 

Truly.

And if our stitches aren’t perfectly even and tidy, hey – who’s going to notice in the dark?

If you’ve seen a zig-zag quilt, you’ll immediately see the fascination. It looks like giant bands of rick-rack trim sewn into a quilt — but really, the zig-zag effect is achieved with a series of triangles and a trick of the eye.

Now, you might look at a zig-zag quilt and figure it’s pretty straightforward to make — but it turns out there are a couple of different ways to cut your triangle pieces and a couple of different ways to assemble them, too.

Check out these quilt tutorials for great instructions and, better yet, for the photographs and illustrations that are soooo essential to make sense of each quilter’s cutting and piecing methods –

I love the way this shows how the quilting community tends to share ideas and build on each others’ creativity, too:

Taylor Groneck has a quick tutorial for a zig-zag quilt based on a pattern in Denyse Schmidt Quilts, and with the advice of…

Nettie Pete (of Etsy and A Quilt Is Nice fame) who shares her Zig-Zag Quilt Tutorial for the quilt inspired by…

The Purl Bee’s Zig Zag Quilt. The Purl Bee is the blog of Joelle & Jennifer Hoverson’s awesome and inventive crafty-sewing shop, Purl, by the way — and if you visit The Purl Bee, better plan to set aside a couple hours to explore… and you’ll want to check out their Triangle Tutorial, too, if you’ve ever had trouble making nice trim corners.

In fact, most quilters (except maybe the real quilting divas among us) agree that the main challenge of a zig-zag quilt — once you’ve picked the fabrics and planned the colours layout — is to take care to get the points of the triangles lined up right when you’re sewing them together.

Another help for this might be the triangle templates and clear how-to illustrations in a new free zig-zag quilt pattern that Anna Maria Horner, author of Seams to Me: 24 New Reasons to Love Sewing, offers as a free PDF download on her blog. “The Folk Dance” is what Horner calls her version of the vintage zig-zag quilt pattern.

There have been so many lovely stories of dogs who’ve been helped by the dog boot pattern I scribbled out and posted when I had to make a quick set of winter boots for my greyhound, Casey — it’s really pretty heartwarming.

Old dogs who slip on the ice…
Dogs with injured paws in need of protection…
Dogs with tender toes who are sensitive to cold…
Outdoor sporting dogs who need a little extra warmth and traction…

Like this GSD beauty, Storm, who lives in Canada’s cold far north:

photo: YKStorm

Pat‘s daughter took her German Shepherd dog out on a rescue mission — looking for a lost Corgi pup who’d bolted in a panic when he got scared on a trail. The pup was found and brought safely home — “fine and much more obedient after 3 days out in -40″ — but Storm lost one of her boots in the snow.

Pat used my pattern to make new doggie booties for her: a beautiful blue colour, extra tall for use in deep snow, with reflective patches for safety.

photo credit: YKStorm

Pat’s one of a growing number of clever and caring dog lovers who have improved on my simple pattern to suit their own dogs’ needs — by adding extra length or a stretchy cuff, experimenting with different non-slip materials on the soles of the boots, and sewing up waterproof versions of the fleece original.

Best yet, these dog lovers are very generous in sharing their ideas with others through their comments.

But that’s not the end of the good puppy karma. Some people — with Casey’s full blessings — are now making these dog booties for sale to help other dogs who have non-sewing owners, dogs in foster homes, and even as a fundraiser to help a greyhound adoption group! You know, I said that it’s heartwarming, all this sewing and creative adaptation… but it’s the sharing that really brightens up a dark winter day and gives hope that, even in tough times, we self-involved human beings can learn to be as giving and caring as our dogs.

Not everyone likes snakes, I know that — but here’s a little fellow who has a lot of appeal — to the eye, the ankles, and the bank account.

Those of us who live in old houses know all too well that an under-door draft can make you cold and uncomfortable in even a well-heated room. And the air that seeps through the crack where window sash meets window sill? Chilly! Before you know it, you’re reaching out from under your afghan to turn up the heat…

In fact, ECOutlet says as much as 20% of heat loss in a typical home can be due to drafts. They’ve got a line of dandy draft-excluding psychadelic snakes (made with vintage fabrics) that are stuffed with eco-friendly buckwheat husks, natural and biodegradable.

Saltylemon‘s 36-inch-long door snake is made to lie along the bottom of a door or windowsill, stopping cold air from sneaking in and cranking up your heating bills. A practical bit of whimsy? Why, yes! And this one has a nice touch — it’s got a velcro fastener, so you can remove the stuffing for easy cleaning.

Over at Amethistle, tie-dyer Sara went DIY and recycled jeans and old socks into a draftstopper snake. She explains how she did it on her blog, if you’re interested in sewing your own. Sara does make the point (which I have learned, too) that you need to have a lot of stuffing to fill out a snake — more than you’d expect to need.

The trick to stuffing your draftstopper is to add something that will give a bit of weight to the snake, to hold it snug against your drafty door or window sill. Beans and rice are popular choices. You can certainly stuff with fibrefill or scraps of old quilt batting, etc., but the draft stopper will work best if you add in an old length of curtain rod, or last summer’s collection of beach pebbles, or something of the sort.

A door snake draftstopper is a fun, quick, inexpensive sewing project that’s all straight-line sewing, making it easy enough for kids and beginners to do yet offering all sorts of opportunities for exercising your creative vision. Big buttons for snake eyes? Tag ends of shiny ribbon for the forked tongue? Sequins for a rattler tail? Have a look around and see what materials you have that could be repurposed into a one-of-a-kind draftstopper.

Whether your decorating taste runs to the whimsical door snake, or to an elegantly simple tube of fabric, like TheMorae‘s draft dodgers or TuttieLou‘s antique handwoven linen with dainty appliques (both available on Etsy.com) — it is one simple, doable way to be green and frugal, to save money on heating costs, and to keep your home a bit more cosy this winter.

Heirlooms to treasure, or just plain creative family fun — either way, there’s a special magic to Christmas decorations that you make yourself at home, and it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. Here’s a round-up of patterns and how-to tutorials for frugal holiday decorations that you can make yourself:

Cardboard, glue, tiny pine cones, and scraps of birchbark — topped off with a sprinkle of glitter, the only special craft item you’ll need to do this — create a rustic miniature Christmas village! Kristin Nicholas –”Getting Stitched on the Farm” — gives a clear step-by-step tutorial for making your own.

Snuggle the houses on a landscape of poly fibrefill or quilt batting snow, if you’ve got some on hand, or just drape a white cloth over crumbled balls of newspaper to make a winter landscape to showcase the minature village.

Squawkfox makes soft stuffies in the shape of tiny trees from leftover scraps of fabric. Quick and easy to sew, it’s a great project for anyone just learning to sew — and you can have amazing fun in embellishing the simple stuffed trees with buttons and bows and fabric paints, whatever you have on hand! Download her printable 2-piece pattern and make yourself a whole forest of stuffies!

Popcorn garlands were always a part of Christmas when I was a child, for example. Sometimes we’d have a bag of those big burgundy-red cranberries to string along with the popcorn — beauty! And sometimes the family dog would sneak a snack from the Christmas tree. I still smile at the memories…

Becca spreads the seasonal joy (and festive decorations) outdoors, with molded bird seed treats — pretty wreaths to feed the birds while they decorate the trees in your yard. (These would make a terrific frugal gift for a birdlover, too!)

Tiny pieces of felt, a little stuffing, and a couple of paperclips — that’s all it takes to make these cute ice skates mini-ornaments from a tutorial by Not Quite Vintage (inspired by her grandmother). Add sequins or seed beads for buttons, or whip a bit of colourful embroidery floss up the front edge to look like laces.

Another favourite do-it-yourself Christmas decoration around our place, growing up, was salt dough modelling clay we’d shape like Play-do into stars and trees and angels, bake in the oven until they dried, then add a touch of craft paint and a ribbon for hanging… My salt dough modelling clay recipe is here, if you want to give it a try for yourself.

Maybe paper crafts are more your style?

Design Sponge has the DIY on this clever paper ball ornament — make a whole lot of them from those tag-ends of gift wrapping paper that are too small to use for much else, and dangle from a swagged evergreen garland, or hang them in a window or on your tree.

Want more Christmas paper crafts? You can find instructions for making the best ever 3-d paper snowflake at Cut Out and Keep . (I tell you, forget those paper snowflakes you might have made in kindergarten — this is in a whole other class!)

And if you’re short on time and/or patience, but you still want the snowflake bling, you can always go for this pretty blue snowflake, from the collection of free printables at Canon.

At the price of printer ink, though, I’d be inclined to print out one copy of the pattern and use it as a template for making snowflakes from plain white paper. I’ve done something similar with lightweight cardstock (empty cereal boxes, actually), then used a little thinned-down white glue and glitter to make them into stars…

This year, the holidays are going to be especially tough for a lot of families — so what better time to rediscover the true meaning of the season, sitting down with the kids to create new traditions that have more to do with sharing the moment than with spending hard-earned money at the mall?

Photo: Penny Sanford Porcelains

Home sewing fans know the satisfaction of making their own fashions. Now you can doll up your dog with the leftover fabric remnants, and set out in matching style!

Embellishment is the key word for high-end handmade dog clothes, so download Penny Sanford’s easy free pattern and sew a variety of these slip-on bandana scarf or tube-type covers… then decorate them up to be one-of-a-kind works of wearable art.

Your dog may not go out of his way to thank you, but this could be a wonderful fun project to do with a young pet-lover, if you have a young friend who wants to learn how to sew or do embroidery, etc., over the summer holidays. (And don’t skimp on the sequins!)

Now all I’ve got to do is figure out a variation on this pattern to dress up my greyhound’s martingale style collar that slips over the dog’s head in one piece instead of unbuckling…

BabyMoonBoutique‘s Sheila Sherman knows that handmade gifts are best… and that you have better things to do with your hard-earned moola than to give it to the post office…

So, instead of ordering up a BabyMoon-made hobby horse by mail, now you can go for the DIY pony pattern at Etsy.

The hobby horse sewing pattern is 20 pages with 36 color photos; $8 brings it to you by email as a printable PDF.

Sheila says the materials cost for making a hobby horse should run about fifteen bucks, with the bonus opportunity to use up those bits-and-pieces of sewing and craft supplies you’ve got lying around.

Sounds like a deal to me… and about the only thing you’ll miss out on is the mild amusement of watching your postal carrier trying to stuff a horse-shaped package into your mailbox!

Is there a more adorable mascot anywhere in the computer world than the goofy, cuddley, splay-footed penguin named Tux, who flies the Linux banner?

We think not.

And a plushie Tux can be yours…

Grab the free Tux sewing pattern from Free-Penguin.org, see the creative penguins that others have made, and haul out your sewing gear…

What better gift could there be, for the Linux fanatic in your life?

I’m putting this nifty pincushion ring right on to my new list of gift ideas under $10!

Even without its delightful $7 price tag, what’s not to love?

An adjustable base-metal ring sports a tiny pincushion in retro print fabric (varous patterns are available, but I’m hooked on these teal squares).

Slip the ring on a finger while you’re sewing (or your craft-crazed friend is sewing) and the essential pins and needles are as handy as it’s possible to keep them.

And you’ll be glad to know (I was!) that there’s a solid base beneath the puffy padding, so pins won’t poke through to prick those busy hands…

I found this in the craft supplies section of the brand new Indie Fixx shop, along with matching rectangular emery pincushions ($9) to keep pins and needles all shiny and sharp in between sewing projects.

You know grosgrain ribbon, right? That sturdy multi-purpose ribbon with strong ribs going across it?

Striped, solid, or even printed with polka dots though it may be — yeah, you know grosgrain when you see it.

Grosgrain ribbon makes a regular appearance in our old family photo albums — mostly in striped ribbon belts with D-ring buckles, worn low on wide-belled hip-huggers or tight at the waist to cinch in a polyester shirtwaist dress.

My mother had an apron trimmed with apple-green grosgrain at the hem and pocket, too, as I recall…

That’s no doubt why grosgrain ribbon says “1970s” to me, more than any other material — except perhaps Mylar wallpaper… and Formica surfaces with tiny metallic flakes… and guitar-driven rock, played very loud…

In short, it’s a shortcut to retro decor style, with a bright new twist.

All this comes to mind because I’ve been looking through John Loecke’s new book, Grosgrain Style: Quick and Creative Projects for Accessorizing and Decorating with Grosgrain Ribbon, dropped into my dainty white hands this week by Random House, the publisher.

Designer John Loecke shows how to use grosgrain ribbons to trim almost any item of domestic decor… from glassware to picture frames… from chandeliers to slipcovers…

He divides the projects up into chapters by room, esssentially, but makes the point that a lot of cross-over is likely to happen, once your imagination gets playing with ribbons.

I think my favourite project of those showcased in the book must be the small-scale ribbon belts… used as casual napkin rings!

This comes from a designer whose own closet boasts a rainbow of ribbon belts, grosgrain ribbon watch bands, key fobs, you name it… So of course there’s even a chapter here on using grosgrain to funky-up your own personal accessories — necklaces, bangles, canvas sneakers, totes, and of course those classic D-ring grosgrain ribbon belts.

At the very end of Grosgrain Style is a section of Ribbon Notes and Resources — easy to find when you need to look something up, because the edges of the pages are printed as if bound with a bright green grosgrain ribbon.

And in here, in the Glossary of Basic Tools part, I found a piece of pure gold:

Sold on rolls and in a variety of widths, this double-sided, pressure-sensitive adhesive holds like glue without the mess… And, unlike glue, Sealah tape is washable, and because it’s both acid- and lignin-free, it will not yellow over time, changing the color of your ribbon.

Am I the only person on the planet who didn’t know of this magical Sealah tape?

But I digress…

This is intended to be more of an inspiration book rather than a step-by-step instruction manual, but I think the designer-author achieves both of those purposes to some degree.

In Grosgrain Style, John Loecke inspires with a bright host of project ideas (beautifully photographed by Wendell Webber, by the way) and gives the basic techniques and materials information that you need to take those ideas as a starting point — to run away with the grosgrain concept, and make each project your own.

Technorati Tags: home decor, books, reviews

I’ve just been looking at HGTV’s ideas for sewing a table runner, thinking of seting a special table for all those holiday dinner guests.

If you’re going to do the festive holiday table runner, why not make it much more than just a simple strip of cloth down the middle of the table?

Especially with an opulent fabric like a tapestry or brocade, pointed ends that are weighted with thick silky tassels add flare to a classic, and classy, dining room decor!

And here’s the best tip for laundering your fancy table linen that I’ve come across in some time, courtesy of Mary Wilkins:

Machine washing can turn your tassels into a tangled mess. Instead of sewing them to the runner, sew a small shirt button on the wrong side near the point. Slip the loop of the tassel over the button and no one will be the wiser. Next time it goes in the washing machine, slip the tassels off and wash as usual. Your tassels will be just like new when you put them back on.

I’m reminded of the button-on collars that were standard wear for men in earlier times, and of the fancy beaded pieces that Victorian and Edwardian ladies fastened on to perk up a plain dress.

This handy tip could apply to any delicate trim or embellishment on an item that’s otherwise machine-washable — not only table linens and bedding, but everything else from blouses to handbags.

Technorati Tags: sewing, tablewear, embellishments, laundry