Thursday 12 September 2013

Think seriously about recycling vintage fabrics.

I've been thinking about the word 'recycle' a lot lately with regard to textiles. So many old textiles are STILL being thrown away instead of being reused. People are still buying modern fabrics when there are plenty of antique and vintage fabric crying out to be recovered. So today I want you to think about how you could reprocess and remodel the wonderful array of vintage fabrics in your craft work. Here is an example of how a lampshade could be made with strips of vintage fabric. Why not send me photo's of your recreations so that we can encourage others to do the same.


Before you buy new fabric STOP and think
Recycle
reuse
redesign
re-evaluate
re-sew
reduce
recover
reprocess
reclaim
remodel
rescue
restore
regenerate
re-model
 

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm making lots of things for a mini craft fair with vintage fabric. I will send photos or a link to my blog post! I have new fabric in my stash but am using it up and NO scraps are thrown - I use them as stuffing!

Frances said...

That scrappy lampshade is so pretty, and the mix of colors and fabrics adds lots of texture. Guess that the light comes through with a blend of all the "shades" in the shade.

Are the fabrics all cotton?

Isn't it a challenging dilemma to balance the value of recycling and "using up" the value of all existing fabrics (particularly when they are natural fibres) with the notion of expanding various nations' economies with more, more, more supply. Don't know whether to end that last sentence with a ? or a .

I do enjoy all your posts!

Cheers!

Sandie said...

Suki, I'm so pleased that you are using vintage fabrics for your crafts. I would love to see your photo's and will use them to boost your sales as well as show what can be made using all the fabrics from long ago.

Sandie said...

Frances, glad you like the picture of the lampshade. I agree with you it is such a dilemma with the growing of cotton. I have just posted an article on Cotton and Water. I think that this goes a long way to showing that in the long term growing cotton is not sustainable. I agree with you that it does help to sustain some nations economies but at what cost? Apparently many growers are now turning to growing tobacco as it is more economically viable for them.
I just hope that by encouraging the use of as many vintage fabrics as possible we can, in the long term help the environment.
Thank you for commenting and telling me that you enjoy my posts as I sometimes wonder if anyone is looking. x