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!

I’ve just been introduced to an interesting little company called Five Humans. Besides having a great name going for them, they’ve got a great mission statement, the “self appointed task of curing ignorance through hip, fashionable clothing.

Basically, Five Humans creates high-quality t-shirts that help you to raise awareness for a cause that’s important to you and your family — like the plight of autistic children, or cancer, diabetes, asthma, heart disease…

Cool Mom Picks says it best:

“When there’s a cause near and dear to my heart, I have no problems letting my child’s chest be a billboard for raising awareness.”

No kid? No worries — T-shirts from Five Humans come in adult sizes, so grown-up men and women can be useful and fashionable billboards for a good cause, too.

Autism, apparently, is the fastest growing developmental disorder in the US (and I’d suspect that there’s a similar stat for other first-world countries). Who knew?

Yet, most of us do know someone whose life is affected in some way by autism — or at the very least have heard news stories of low-income parents who can’t afford the special training and early intervention that’s needed for autistic children. There is no cure for autism, but that doesn’t mean there’s no hope: as cause-related t-shirts serve to remind us, ignorance is a curable disease.

Who says that Twitter is a waste of time? Hey, I discovered Fierce Hugs there today!

Fierce Hugs is a little company that specializes in ethical and affordable organic cotton baby tees and onesies.

These are original designs by two independent artists: Dagmar Meinders from The Netherlands, and Silvia Osella from Torino, Italy, whose work includes the Confused Cloud illustration shown on the little t-shirt here.

The t-shirt is $24 and comes in three sizes: 6-12 months, 12-18m, and 18-24m. The same design is also available in 0-3m and 3-6m as a bodysuit, but that’s just far too cute to show you here.

DJ reminds me that one of his all-time favourite T-shirt dealers is teaming up with the Dewey Donation System — “Helping Books Find Libraries Since 2003″ — to help buy some much-needed books for public libraries.

He’s Dewey!
He’s a decimal!
He’s got book hair!

Here’s the deal:

Buy a fine jersey Dewey shirt from Glarkware, and they’ll donate 100% of the price to this year’s book drive charities — the Rockhouse Foundation and Children’s Institute.

This campaign ends at the end of February — so get in fast!

Because kids really need free access to lots and lots of books if they’re ever going to make their way in the world.

And empty libraries, apparently, make Dewey cry…

It almost breaks my heart that this clever emoticon T-shirt doesn’t exist yet!

Have a Day is a submission by a guy called Elbeardo to the on-going T-shirt design contest over at Threadless.com — where they give away something like $2000 in cash and prizes to 4-6 lucky winners every month.

Isn’t this a great design?
So simple, and yet so… simple.

The emoticon smiley face would be a blank circle, so you can draw on the face that best expresses the kind of day you’d like others to experience — and a blank white space lets you pick your own adjective. With a washable marker, you can change your mind about your design if your day happens to take a turn for the better or worse, part way through…

Anyone can send in a design for a chance to win, or vote on other people’s submitted designs — joining the street team is free and lets you earn points that can be cashed in to support your Threadless T-shirt habit.

And I’ll warn you now, surfing on the Threadless site gets habit-forming.

I was lurking for a while and finally grabbed a free account of my own at the end of August.

See, I’ve got an idea brewing for a submission of my own… (and aren’t you just so curious to know what it might be? Too bad, it’s not ready yet!) So far I’ve just been enjoying the fun of voting for my favourite shirt designs and leaving an occasional comment for the Threadless artists and wannabees like me.

A Snake in the Grass isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Not when it’s a luscious rich-coloured cushion cover, nature-inspired with a South African influence.

This brick red and gold cushion cover features a mixed media of surface design techniques:
• shibori stitched resist
• block printed
• screen printed
• hand painted
• vat dyed
• discharge dyed
• applique
16″ square envelope style cover in 100% cotton.

The artist, inkyspider, is a textile artist working in a mixed media of surface design techniques — located in the Kootenay mountains area of British Columbia, Canada (which explains the influence of natural forms and colours!) but trained in South Africa with a focus on painting and print making techniques.

Not in the market for a cushion cover? Check out the inkyspider designs T-shirt collection.