Articles tagged “Sewing”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Join the Shift to Thrift By Lloyd Alter IN Tech & Transport Jan 21 2008 In the United Kingdom, one of the surprise hits in the book world is David Kynaston's Austerity Britain, 1945-1951 (2008, Walker & Company), which documents the way Britons adapted to the dire shortages after World War II.Create a soap ball in the kitchen: Collect tiny fragments of soap from elsewhere in the house, then + READ MORE

Sew Your Own "Octopus Chair" By Collin Dunn IN Home & Garden Jan 16 2008 Take four pairs of pants, nine buttons, and some stuff, and what do you have? Grab four pairs of similar-size old pants, a handful of big buttons and a bunch of stuff-regular bean bag or cushion stuffing would work, but you could go all recycled with scraps of old T-shirts or towels-and you're on your way. + READ MORE

Sew a Pillowcase Dress By Jasmin Malik Chua IN Home & Garden Jan 15 2008 Here's another creative way to reuse an old pillowcase: Turn it into a dress for a little girl. If you're feeling brazen enough to cut up antique linens, Sew Beautiful has printable directions on making an heirloom version (PDF), festooned with ruffles and puffed sleeves, for your tot to flit about in. Have more... + READ MORE

Strap on a Seatbelt Purse By Jasmin Malik Chua IN Home & Garden Jan 14 2008 Match your kooky seatbelt belt with an equally striking shoulder bag, crafted from relinquished seatbelt webbing. A piece of 2-inch foam and a raft of upholstery pins hold the bag's shape as you weave lengths of seatbelt over and under one another. + READ MORE

Turn Old Containers into Playful Storage Solutions By Jasmin Malik Chua IN Home & Garden Jan 3 2008 Martha Stewart Kids-now sadly defunct-shows us how we can gussy up used jugs, canisters, and other containers into fun kids' crafts. Used Oatmeal boxes, clean cans, cigar boxes, and cookie tins only need some creative relabeling, with some peel-and-stick paper and a printer, to disguise their original purpose and... + READ MORE

Find 14 Uses for Orphan Socks By Jasmin Malik Chua IN Home & Garden Dec 20 2007 It's one of life's greatest mysteries: Two socks enter the washing machine, one sock leaves, its mate gobbled up by laundry goblins. Send to Operation Happy Sock, where it'll be stuffed with polyfill and catnip for cats at the local animal shelter 11. + READ MORE

Make a Wallet Out of a Used PC Keyboard By Jasmin Malik Chua IN Home & Garden Dec 20 2007 If it's time to set your battered keyboard out to pasture, one Instructables enthusiast suggests ripping out the circuit sheet beneath the keys and fabricating a dapper wallet that will have the Grinchiest geek in your life blubbering with yuletide joy this Christmas. + READ MORE

Green Your Home for Winter: Sew a Draft Stopper By Jasmin Malik Chua IN Home & Garden Dec 18 2007 Dodge the draft, without having to hotfoot it all the way to Canada, by stuffing fabric snakes into crevices where the chill can nip in and sneakily drive up heating costs. You can whip up your own by sewing an 8x42-inch piece of tightly woven fabric into a tube, and then stuffing it with cotton or wool batting,... + READ MORE

Learn to Sew By Jasmin Malik Chua IN Home & Garden Dec 4 2007 Open-source sewing site Burda Style has a new series of tutorials for the absolute neophyte. With illustrated step-by-step directions to guide you through beginner basics, such as reading a sewing pattern and threading a sewing machine, you'll be DIYing with the best of them in no time. + READ MORE

Slip Your Laptop into a Tyvek Sleeve By Jasmin Malik Chua IN Tech & Transport Nov 29 2007 Tyvek mailing envelopes, such as those used by Fedex and the U.S. Postal Service, can make a sturdy (and more important, waterproof) laptop sleeve, with a bit of crafty ingenuity. You'll need roughly three to four used envelopes-this Instructable commandeered three Fedex Large Paks-some quilt batting, and the ability... + READ MORE

Convert an Old Sweater into a Shrug and Skirt By Jasmin Malik Chua IN Fashion & Beauty Nov 28 2007 Beat the chill by getting cosy with ThreadBanger: In this video, the stitcheristas show us how to jazz up an old, tired sweater by chopping it up into a kicky shrug and skirt. + READ MORE

Bind Used Office Paper into a Stab-Stitched Book By Jasmin Malik Chua IN Work & Connect Nov 28 2007 Offices generate a heckuva lot of paper waste. Slack Stab-Stitched Recycled Book Four or more sheets of 8 1/2 x 11-inch (21.5 x 28cm) lightweight office paper, printed on one sideOne sheet of 8 1/2 x 11-inch (21.5 x 28cm) colored cover-weight paper, also printed on one side, if possibleBone folderX-Acto knifeAwlBulldog + READ MORE

Wrap Your Presents in Reusable Gift Bags By Jasmin Malik Chua IN Home & Garden Nov 27 2007 The holiday season offers little peace and goodwill for the world's forests. Give a tree a break this yuletide by wrapping your winter bestowals in reusable fabric gift bags-you can easily whip up your own with some basic sewing know-how. + READ MORE

Braid, Hook, or Weave a Rag Rug By Jasmin Malik Chua IN Home & Garden Oct 26 2007 Keep discarded clothing out of the landfill, while granting them a second lease on life, by crocheting strips of fabric together to create a country-style rag rug-a waste-not-want-not tradition that has added color and warmth to hearths in North America for hundreds of years. If you're more deft with a sewing needle... + READ MORE

Sew a Pet Bed By Jasmin Malik Chua IN Home & Garden Sep 17 2007 Dog and cat beds especially eco-friendly ones made of hemp, organic cotton, and recycled PET can get pricey, costing upwards of at least 0. So when it became obvious that recent adoptee Mir needed a place to snooze other than our seriously peeved older cat's window-sill hangout, we decided to follow Lori Marie's lead + READ MORE

Hack Your Swiffer By Jasmin Malik Chua IN Tech & Transport Aug 27 2007 We're still not sure what Gianfranco Zaccai, CEO of the design consultancy that brought us the Swiffer, was smoking when he called P&G's best-selling (and admittedly revolutionary) cleaning system "eco-friendly." A sheet of magnetic rubber and some adhesive can turn your dust mop into a handy screw retriever you can... + READ MORE