Sustainability from the Ground Up.

 Today is Earth Day, and I always have mixed feelings about that. When I was younger - a high-school student, starry-eyed and idealistic - each year was a new chance to rally people to the cause. A few years on cynicism and it's a day of green-washing, lip service, and singular feel-good activities. How does an activist spread the ethos of care into the other 364 days of the year?

Pictures from the first Earth Day, 1970

If I had the perfect answer to that I would be out on the streets, leading the charge. Instead, I am here to encourage the makers, the creative types, to think sustainably in their creations. Here's the simple, easy things to think of for sustainable design.

 1.)What is it made from?
        Obviously, this is where it starts. Let's say you have a great product idea, and it's gonna help people save water/conserve energy/not waste food etc... but it's made out of plastic and packaged in styrofoam. New materials are helping to solve this problem, but I opine that returning to simple natural materials is always the best choice!

2.)What happens when it breaks?
        Is the item made to last? Can it be fixed? Can it be repurposed? Seed paper cards are an example of an item that has an explicit second life.

3.)Where does it go to?
         This is where that nasty plastic causes problems, but any material can be a problem if there's nothing to do with a broken or worn-out item but throw it away! Can it be reused or recycled? Composted? Cradle to Grave is the ethos of designing an "afterlife" for an item.

4.)Does it work?
     This can be overlooked by a greenwashing company. Story time - back in the late 90s when the first bioplastic were appearing on the market my mother bought a few packs of corn plastic pens and permanent markers. How proud we were! Early adopters who are reducing our impact! Of course, the pen part didn't work for crap. So concerned, was that company, with making and marketing the bioplastic outers, that the insides of the pen were shoddy and non-functioning. If the product doesn't work very well or breaks right away, then no matter what it is made from it is not sustainable!

5.)How is it made?
     The other downside of those early bioplastics (see why I prefer natural materials?), was the manufacture. It involved toxic chemicals, those chemicals were not always handled properly, the energy required to manufacture was much higher than petroplastics. Problems like this lead to the idea of sustainability as a complex system! If an item pollutes when it is made, that's the same as if it pollutes when it is thrown away!

6.)Who makes it?
     Here's the tough part for many big companies, we handcrafters got this down pretty well. If an item is not socially responsible then it is not sustainable. This is not simply a matter of morality - oppressive systems are not stable or sustainable. And pushing people into poverty often forces them to make choices that are environmentally harmful and destructive to their culture and society. But handmakers must also be responsible about this! What are we outsourcing? What processes are they using? Are we charging enough for our time and talents?

7.) How is it used?
     Let us not forget the most important aspect of design - is it useful? What do we use it for? It drives me crazy to see the piles of "recycling" ideas that turn a throwaway item into a nominally decorative piece of bric-a-brac. I mean, sure, a few decorative vases is fine, and a pen cup or two made from old containers covered in pretty paper or such... but how many can you have in your house? And the item that is only decorative? That's like a garbage denial system, we store it on the walls and shelves awaiting it's inevitable doom. Good sustainable design make useful items that we want to use in environmentally responsible ways!

Happy Earth Day everyone! From a crabby environmentalist, and Crafty Bitch.

Five Great Upcycling Projects for Denim

Upcycling Denim is kind of my thing, I have literal piles of old pants, bins of denim scraps, and loads of cut up pieces. Whenever I think I'm making progress, BAM  - someone brings be another box of torn-kneed denim. Seriously, some friends just leave it on my porch. So, for anyone who doesn't want to start a factory style assembly line of upcycled Denim Bags, here's some other project ideas!

One can, of course, simple cannibalize old pants for the fabric and sew any project you can imagine that involves some small pieces. I could not hope to make something so cute as this Adorable Whale, so I'll send you to it's creator!



Use the sturdiness of the material to your advantage! A long lasting rug can be made from even small scraps.

For the more ambitious, be inspired by the Scrap Lab. This chair is made from industrial scraps and suggest a plethora of furniture options. Perhaps with old chair frames that have lost their fabric bits?

 A sleek and simple choice - potholders from the pockets of old pants. (Be sure your machine can handle sewing thru that many denim layers!) Also, how crafty are the Finns!

If you want to turn those pockets into more spaces for holding things (as pockets are wont to do), consider an organizer. You might think it looks like overkill, and you don't have all that much stuff... you do. Unless your house looks like an IKEA catalog, you can totally find enough random things laying around to warrant wall pockets.

Five Awesome Upcycling Projects for Sewers

 I am always on the lookout for good ways to make use of old materials. Unmatched buttons, bits of fabric, broken zippers and old notions. The best of the goods get rolled into my upcycled bags, but let's face it. I have a lot of fabric. A. Lot. 

So here's a sampling of good ways to upcycle those crafty bits, like into something exciting! Like purdy hangers, good for those of us with exposed closet spaces. Also, slippery clothing won't fall off.

From Corrieberry Pie

Or a cute little tree! Perfect for lonely little buttons, and that neat wood spool! (Let's not talk about how many empty spools I have in the craft room...)

From Kitsch and Curious

 Several ways to use old zippers? Yes please! I have an alarming number of busted zippers, and plenty of nice metal ones are available from the fly of old pants.

From Passion Make on Instructables.

Mmmmmm, little wee scraps! Stitching onto paper to give fabric a new life and purpose, and trees! (I really like trees, in case you didn't know.) One could of course branch out into any designs that suit the message... but trees are the best.

From Stitched in Color

 And here's the most practical of upcycling projects for the seamstress - a sewing kit! I find that us four-eyes tend to accumulate old glasses, and as I donate old frames I often keep the case, now I know why. See, just planning! I'm totally not a hoarder...

From Tea Rose Home

Now get out there and re-make cool things!

Beltane Fires

Blessed Beltane! Merry Mayday! Happy Walpurgis, International Workers Day, Valborg or any other excuses you have to build a bonfire and party with your comrades.

Beltane is an interesting transition time, officially spring begins on Eostre, the equinox, but around here the cold weather is clinging on. Colorado is notorious for unpredictable climes, and I know well enough to not put out the tomatoes until May Day as we can get snow 10 months of the year here in the city. So we are now moving into a steady warm season, with ever lengthening days and the greening earth.

Flower crown tutorial.

Traditionally Beltane was celebrated throughout the British Isles, honoring the sun god Bel. Great fires would be built and the livestock was run between two fires on their way out to summer pastures. This practice may have arisen from attempts to scare away evil spirits, or the more practical scaring off of predators and competition. Walpurgis and all it's relatives were also based around bonfires and merry-making.

Photo by Roddy Macd

In the earlier days of Industrialization and socialist movements May Day became International Workers Day. Besides being a day of celebration, it has been suggested that the largely rural farming workforce that was transitioning to factory work still enjoyed the holiday even after the older traditions (like running livestock) had dropped out of it.

Link

No matter the focus of your celebration, this is a time of new awakenings and fresh starts. As we in the northern hemisphere enjoy the coming bounty and fertility of the land, raise a glass to the fire, to the land, and to the people who work it!

Sacred Lands

I recently watched a number of clips from the Sacred Lands Film Project for a class, and I was moved like I'd been chopping onions. Here's the thing, in much of modern society, and particularly for Euro-Americans (we are a nation of immigrants after all), we don't have a strong local connection to places. The idea of a spot being sacred may be hard for many of us to imagine.

Watching these clips made me crave that connection, to love a part of the earth as a critical part of your culture. What makes land sacred to you? Are there any sacred spots near you?

Earth Day!

As I did my daily blog reading yesterday, and skimmed an entry on The Wild Hunt, I mumbled something about Earth Day. The Boyfriend looked up
"Oh! When is Earth Day anyway...?"
"It's today." I replied nonchalantly
"Ooooh... are we doing anything special?"
"All the hippy-dippy stuff we do everyday."
This is the crux of Earth Day really, it isn't a single day to look at the world around us that sustains us. It's a single day to learn more, to become personally involved in the care of the planet. What good is one day a year of tree planting and organic foods, if the rest of the year is spent consuming mindlessly? It's like "those" religious people who are good one day of the week when at church/temple/mosque/circle etc. and a total lying asshole the other six. Weekend environmentalism made smaller.

The tradition of Earth Day as an educational time has been lost, but we can reclaim it. Don't think of it as a single event, it's the New Year's Day of sustainability. Make a slew of resolutions - turn off more lights, use less water, buy local, recycle more, get outside - and stick to them year round. The biggest impacts in creating a sustainable future do not come from governments and corporations. They come from individuals changing their lifestyles. From entire cultures changing their lifestyles. Companies sell us what we demand, so demand local sustainable goods, efficient appliances and vehicles, and soundly raised foods. The government must bend to the will of the people, make your voice heard to protect wild lands and agrarian systems, support small businesses, and improve water and air protections.

I will continue to post about environmental issues from time to time, all year! Because April 22nd isn't the only time you can buy CFL bulbs or fix a leaky faucet. What are your Earth Day resolutions!

Special Bag Project...

If you don't know, I'm a member of the Carried Away Bag Makers Team on Etsy. We have team challenges from time to time, it's a great exercise in pushing our craft, and it allows us to interact with each other. I'm often feeling too busy to participate, but I had to jump in on an Earth Day theme!


Since all of my work is eco-friendly I felt like I had to kick it up a notch! I'm doing an applique of the world pieced from lots of little bits of recycled fabric scraps. This is a bit new for me, instead of cutting large pieces into shapes I get to put it together like a crazy puzzle.

The toughest part was pinning everything down, I think I used every pin in y craft room! And then I had to be very careful not to grab too many pins in my hand while I was appliqueing, only a few pricks happened...



Voilá! Finished the ocean sections, tomorrow I will go in and fill the land with browns and greens. And with the time this has taken, I think I may just keep this bag for myself.