January 12th, 2010
Photo: Sproutzstore.blogspot.com
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the production of cotton uses a lot of water which is a valuable and dwindling resource. Shortages of fresh water worldwide lead to famine and starvation, war and terrorism, poverty and disease. In thinking about how I can do my part to help eliminate the unnecessary use of this precious resource globally I have been looking to reduce consumption of disposable products that I can replace with reuseable options. The first and easist switch for me was to stop purchasing new clothes and reuse fabric that I have available locally. Next, I began to investigate other household items that I could replace and while I was washing my face last night it dawned on me; cotton facial rounds! These little cotton pads are great for removing eye make-up and cleansing, but I use several of them each and every day. I thought,”surely, there must be some way to buy or make my own reuseable pads”. This morning I began to look for alternatives and was pleased to find that I can both buy and make my own easily and inexpensively. There are packs of Organic Reusable Cotton Face Rounds
on Amazon and variety of homemade versions on Etsy like these cotton buds or facial scrubbies. There are literally hundreds in a variety of colors, textures and materials on etsy just type “facial cotton” into the search box and go. If you are of the DIY persuasion there are even patterns so that you can crochet your own and tutorials to tech you to reuse fabric you already have to sew a few. My takeaway from this is that I can keep pushing myself to reduce my consumption in ways that help my family and the world, with little inconvenience to our way of life. Each little change that I make helps and if we can each change a habit or two, perhaps we can begin to make some real change. So keep pushing new ideas and sharing them with everyone so that we can all walk the long road to reducing our impact and improving our way of life for everyone together.
Filed under DIY, Environmentally Focused, Products, Tutorial
| Tags: beauty, crochet, DIY, eco-friendly, Etsy, recycle, refashion, thrifty, Tutorial |
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November 4th, 2009
I really enjoy recycling clothes and its true that with a little assistance that I can make darn near anything out of an old T-shirt, but I’ve always been drawn to knitting and crochet. The trouble is that I don’t actually know anyone who does it and everyone who has tried it complained that they couldn’t sort it out. Luckily, a friend of mine is currently happily knitting away at wash cloths and some very elaborate squares (I think to be used in a blanket). So I figured, it’s now or never… I’ve ordered a video from Amazon entitled The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Knitting
and Learn to Crochet
. We’ll see how this goes…. Next, I purchased some beginner project items from Lion Brand Yarn. I really likied that I could shop by yarn type and then link right to the projects with free instructions to download. It also groups all of the items that you need and then gives you 15% off if you order all at once, which I really thought was the Bee’s Knees. I picked the Learn to Knit Cuff and the Learn to Crochet Cuff because they just look so cute and the materials needed are inexpensive. I’m really looking forward to this and crossing my fingers, we’ll see just how smart I really am (eek!). I’m allergice to wool so I’m going to start reading and learning more about knitting with cotton and other alternatives. These days they have yarn made from all kinds of neat materials including bamboo, soy, corn and hemp. I’ll see what I can find about their sustainability, but hope to ultimately be able to purchase sweaters second-hand and just recycle the yarn. Wish me luck and I’ll keep you posted!
Filed under News
| Tags: crochet, DIY, knit |
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