A couple weekends ago we participated in the Austin Art Alliance’s Art City Austin along Town Lake in downtown Austin. It was perfect weather for the event: blue skies, low 80s and mellow breezes too. Future Craft Collective was set up in the kids tent volunteering our crafty/sustainable skills to make origami paper wallets.

We found the original project in a library book ADVANCED ORIGAMI and tweaked it a bit to make it a really practical shape and size for use and also easier for the kids to fold. We also added stitching around the perimeter to bump it up a notch and to make them more of a permanent fixture. It was upcycling at it’s finest as we dug through our recycling bins in search of just the right weight and colored paper for the project. We utilized magazine pages from these great photo stock books that Kathie had stocked away. We also played around with file folders, bird seed bags, brown paper bags, wall paper and whatever other little scraps we could gt our hands on.

By weekend’s end, we had folded approximately 200 or so paper wallets with kids and adults alike. (We always take great pride when our project appeals to both kids and adults – especially when we’re in the kids craft tent.) Some folks wanted the pattern so that they could continue to make wallets at home from their own recycling bins.

These would make great gifts to mail – especially if you stuck a couple bills or a check inside!

Here’s how to make your very own paper wallet…

Materials: paper and a sewing machine

These instructions are for a 8 1/2 x 14″ piece of paper. Any size paper will do. Just fold adjust the dimensions as needed.

1. Fold the top edge of the paper over 3 1/4″
2. Flip the paper over and fold each side in 3/4″
3. Fold the bottom edge up 2 3/4″   4. Fold the paper NEARLY in half but not quite, approximately 3 7/8″ 5. Tuck the fold into the bottom flap and flatten 6. Fold the wallet in half and stitch all the way around the perimeter

It sounds super easy of course. And really it is. But it’s also super cool and a great way to get through the rest of winter time without spending some bucks on some new shirts. Even here in Texas we’re having an elongated long-sleeve season with temps a full 10-20 degrees below normal. Brrrrrrrr. We’re not used to this down here!

All you need to get started is a sewing machine and a couple of short sleeve tees.

Find two that match. Or don't. Whichever you prefer.

If you like cap sleeves, whack them off. Or leave them. Your call.

try to get a basic measurement of the distance of the seam that joins the body of the tee to the sleeve. then half that measurement , add 1/2" for seam allowance, and use that number to draw a line from the center of the tee that will be your long sleeves down to just under the armpit of the tee, then make a line that goes down to the bottom of the tee shirt and tapers in.

hard to see here, but i folded the top sleeve piece in half lengthwise in order to get a mirror image to complete the sleeve piece. trace and cut. the bottom hem of the shirt will now be your wrist hem. so you want the length that your sleeve tapers to at the bottom to equal the diameter that you would like the wrist of your sleeve to be, minus 1/2 in seam allowance on either side.

fold both sleeve pieces in half lenghwise, right side in, and stitch up the underarm seam. i used my serger here, but a zig zag stitch (for stretch) would also work.

fold your tee shirt inside out. stuff the sleeve of your teeshirt (the one that came attatched to it, not the one we're going to add) INSIDE the shirt, so that you are looking at the bodice of the tee shirt and can see the shoulder seam, but the sleeve is tucked inside. now you will take one of your new long sleeves, flip the underarm seam so that it is on the INSIDE of the sleeve, then stuff the whole thing inside the tee shirt where you have already stuffed the existing short sleeve, wrist side first. line up the underarm seam of your new sleeve with the underarm seam of your existing sleeve, then match the sleeves all the way around the diameter of the sleeve opening. zig zag new sleeve to existing sleeve.

when you are done stitching, your layers of sleeve and tee shirt should basically look like this. (keep in mind this tee shirt is INSIDE OUT).

do the same thing to the other sleeve, then turn it all right side out! voila.

In Texas it’s hard to keep a jack o’ lantern looking fresh for very long. About an hour after carving the flies arrive and the heat starts to melt the pumpkin into a slump. Within a couple of days it’s caving in on itself in a sort of gelatinous lump. It dawned on me that pumpkins aren’t really a southern kind of thing so I looked around to see just what native fruit or veggie I could use as a substitute. In the grocery stores I came upon a mountain of Texas grown Ruby Red grapefruits which are as beautiful as they are delicious. Last year we had made little oil lamps out of our cast off orange rinds and this year I decided to bump it up a notch.

Lo and behold our Ruby Red, fresh from the Rio Grande Valley, grapefruit jack o’ lanterns.

Step 1:

Cut off the top of the grapefruit, in a similar manner to cutting off the top of a pumpkin.

Step 2:

Run a sharp paring knife along the inside of the grapefruit between the fruit and the rind. Go along the sides and the bottom too.

Step 3:

With a spoon, scoop out the insides as best you can. Put it in a bowl for your eating pleasure.

Step 4:

Put a small votive in and light or do steps 5-7

Step 5:

Using the tab from a soda can, tie a piece of wick around the middle of the tab leaving about a half inch of wick sticking up from the top.

Step 6:

Place the tab, wick up, in the bottom center of the grapefruit.

Step 7:

Pour in about an inch or so of vegetable oil or any other kind of cooking oil you might have handy.

Step 8:

Light and enjoy the show!

Materials:

• screen printing paint (optional)
• brayer for paint (you know those rollers used for printmaking?)
• thin cardboard (we used a six pack container)
• 6 sheets of paper  (construction paper weight is good)
• hemp string or other similar weight string
• rubber stamp letters (optional)

Step 1. (Optional) On a sheet of rubber made for carving rubber stamps, carve out your groovy cover design. On a block of wood or cardboard covered with plastic wrap and roll out a thin layer of screenprinting paint with your brayer. On ours Kathie did a cool faux woodprint design.

Step 2. Cut two pieces of cardboard each 5 3/4″ x 8 1/2″

Step 3. Roll the rubber stamp with the paint covered brayer and print the cardboard

Step 4. Stamp ADDRESSES on your cardboard

Step 5. Fold your 8 1/2″ x 11″ paper in half so that it measures 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″

Step 6. Stick your paper inside your cardboard pieces

Step 7. Hole punch your stack of cardboard and paper at 6 points along the edge. 3 sets of 2 holes. (see picture)

Step 8. Feed your string through as shown

Step 9. Fill out your book with a list of your favorite people’s addresses. Keeping your favorites handy will increase the odds of you sending them mail on a regular basis. In ours we’ve got grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends. Life will be better for it.

It will eat all your sewing table scraps

What’s a Scrap Ball you ask? We stumbled across this idea during class one afternoon in that sort of lightbulb-over-your-head kind of way. The ball itself is a classic kid project – straightforward, sweet, and super satisfying to play with at the end.  The lightbulb moment came, not from the project itself, but from the possibility of utilizing it in a whole new way that fills an ever present need in every sewing room everywhere.

So, we’re in class one day and we had the kids making these fun balls out of felted wool sweaters and blankets. They were all really enjoying the whole process – both because of the simplicity and because of the myriad fabric options they could choose from to arrange into a fun and colorful ball. We had wool sweaters of all colors and patterns: argyles, stripes, ribbed, and even one choice, yet slightly moth eaten cashmere. Working with the sweaters is so texturally pleasing – to add the choices of colors and patterns that could be paired any way they chose only compounded that pleasure.

Everything was moving along super chill. The kids were sewing up a storm. Kathie was cleaning off the work table and picking up all the many dozens of little fabric scraps that inevitably litter any sewing table anywhere.  I was just finishing up the sewing of one of these little treasures because, even though I was supposed to be teaching, I couldn’t resist this compelling project. I tossed my unstuffed ball over to Kathie and it was an “a-ha” just like peanut butter and chocolate, ice cream and cone, gin and tonic –  wool ball skin and fabric scraps! Right then and there, Kathie got to work, dumping all those tiny pieces into the ball which otherwise would have been headed for the trash.

And so, for the next few days, the ball lived there on the sewing table, eating all the table scraps, until it was stuffed full and lived on in the playroom happily ever after. Thus, in our sewing room now, you will always see a felted wool Scrap Ball, in various stages of fullness, sitting hungrily in the center of the work space.

We think these little babies should be on every work table in every sewing room around the globe gathering up those ever present scraps. You can give them as baby gifts, use them as juggling balls, or toss them into the playroom.

Make your own Scrap Ball

1. Find an old wool sweater or blanket. It must be wool because acrylic won’t felt up. Or maybe you have an old favorite that accidently got felted. Throw it in the washer set on HOT and HEAVY DUTY. The more agitation, the better because it’s the heat and the agitation together that makes those little wool hairs really curl up nice and tight with each other.
2. Cut out your pattern piece like the one shown here.  You can adjust the size. Smaller ones make great juggling balls.
3. Cut four pattern pieces of the felted wool. Any colors will work. Any combination. All four pieces the same. Three of one and one of another. Or two and two.
4. Take two of the pieces and sew them along one edge, good sides together.
5. Repeat.
6. Now take those two pieces and line them up as you like them – good sides together. Starting at the middle of one side, sew around the edge, leaving a 2 inch hole on the side.
7. Flip it inside out.
8. Leave it on your sewing table to eat all your scraps.  Stick a little bell in the middle if you like.
9. When your ball is full, you can sew it shut with a hidden ladder stitch, a whip stitch or a colorful blanket stitch – depending on your what you like.
10. PLAY BALL!!!

The traditional Tibetan prayer flag is a colorful panel or rectangle of thin cloth in many colors and strung together. Traditionally they are woodblock printed with prayers in the form of text and images. They are often found strung along mountain ridges in the Himalayas to bless the surrounding countryside. The thought is that the breeze blows through and around the flags thereby spreading the prayers far and wide.

Here at Future Craft, we have made many a version of prayer flags that offer a similar intention – to spread prayers, wishes and good thoughts far and wide.

Last year, in our mama’s group, we used the prayer flag template to make “birthday wish flags.” With pinking shears we cut printed fabric for a background square, and then a smaller square of plain white fabric – either muslin, cut up white cotton sheet or some such similar plain, recycled fabric. Each person in the group wrote our messages, wishes, thoughts and feelings for the birthday girl onto a piece of white fabric, which we then sewed onto the background piece. We then strung them all together for the words to catch the breeze and bring good wishes all year long. We each have them hung up in some special spot and, nearly a year out, they still make our hearts sing.

During election time last fall we participated in an Obama Mama rally and family picnic and were asked to bring a participatory craft. We had already done the birthday flags and thought a flag would be a great project for a large group. For the kids, we wanted to present something that would conjur up hope, pure and simple, rather than a partisan declaration. Kathie cleverly came up with the term Hope Flags and at that rally for Obama on a beautiful fall Austin day, that sentiment resonated LOUDLY!

We pre-cut a couple hundred background fabrics in a wide variety of patterns and colors. We also pre-cut a same amount of the smaller, white sheets. As a nod to the traditional Tibetan flags using wood blocks, Kathie made rubber block prints that offered Hope themed writing prompts: I AM HOPE… Hope to me sounds like… Hope to me looks like… and, What I can do… We also had some blank flags for people to come up with their own statements.

Rather than machine sew the white onto the patterned, we brought buttons and embroidery thread and needles to sew them together by hand. Kids and adults could write out their prompts using the colored pens, select their background fabric, choose a button for the anchor at the top two corners, and either sew them on themselves, or have us do it for them.

The response was amazing and colorful and thoughtful and hopeful and accessible for all. We then strung the flags from tree to tree for all the messages of hope and commitment and peace and diplomacy to waft on the breeze and spread to all the surrounding countryside. After the rally we took them back to the studio where they now hang the length of the building and from wall to wall. They illuminate the studio still with their drawings, scribbles and words – all serving as clear and continuous messages of hope. And I guess they worked!

We continue to ponder the prayer flag, birthday flag, wish flag, hope flag as a design that is full of amazing possibilities – each one full of sentiment and love and hope and each one full of ideas for more ideas!

So whether you are a master seamstress or someone who has never before held a needle and thread, you can whip up a prayer flag to suit your own needs and creative desires. Make it detailed with embroidery and buttons and all the bells and whistles, or make it simple with plain cloth and thread and pen. It’s yours to do with what you like and yours too to share meaningful messages over and over and over again.

If taking this on still seems too complicated, please head over to our shop page for your very own Future Craft Collective Prayer Flag kit – which includes everything you need to make your own string of flags.

Thanks to our dear friend Jote for these amazing pictures!

In class today we’re making water bottle holders with the kids. In addition to utilizing our now standard thrift store bed sheets, we rounded up some upholstery cut-offs from our local upholsterer, John’s Upholstery. Thanks John!! We called him up this morning and he loaded us up this afternoon with pieces too small for his needs but perfect for ours. We’ll also be using bird seed bag liners to keep the water from wicking through the fabric.

In our craft blog searching, we came across this other really cleverly upcycled water bottle sling made from old wide ties. (See, I say “other cleverly upcycled” implying that yes, ours is also cleverly upcycled.) We’ll have pictures up soon of our own version. In the meantime, check out this comfortable and ingenious necktie pouch and easy to follow tutorial by Betz White.

1. Open up the bird seed bag and cut off the top and bottom.

2. Examine the graphics and images on the bag to determine which part speaks to you visually.

3. Cut off any images you’d like to add on as an appliqué/collage. It is amazing to watch an image transform when it goes from being a part of a bigger picture to an entity on its own.

4. Be sure to leave enough material for the bag itself, which measures anywhere from 26”x14” to 28”x14”

5. To determine which area will be used for design work – fold the rectangle in half with the unprinted side on the outside. As you are planning your design layout keep in mind that you will need to allow 1 1/2 inches up from the bottom on each side – this will serve as a 3 inch flat bottom.

6. Now play around with your collage images and get creative. Move them around on your blank canvas.

7. Once you get the image you like, pin the pieces in place.

8. Once the pieces are pinned in place, zig zag them onto the bag.

9. Fold it in half so that the printed side (not the appliquéd side) is on the outside.

10. Now sew shut each side, with a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

11. On the folded bottom of the bag, at each corner, measure up 2.5 inches on the seam, and 2.5 inches on the bottom fold. Pinch the corner into a triangle, using the 2.5 inch marks as your guide and sew across. With this step you are creating a small triangle. Do this on each side.

12. With pinking shears, cut along the top opening of the bag just cutting off a fraction of an inch.

13. Sew along the top of the bag all the way around. (Don’t sew it shut!!)

14. Now turn the bag right side out.

15. On each side, from each bottom corner to the top of the bag, pinch the material together and sew a straight line about an 1/8 inch in from the outside edge. There will be two of these on each side of the bag.

16. Stand your bag up. Fold in the sides of your bag giving your bag a boxy look.

17. Cut a small rectangle out of your scrap material approx. 1” x 2” This will serve as the reinforcement for sewing on your button.

18. Find a medium to large sized button

19. Fold the small scrap rectangle in half and put it inside the bag about 4” from the top – in the middle of the bag.

20. On the outside, place the button in the same location as the reinforcement piece and hold the two in place while you sew the button on using embroidery floss or some other similar type string.

21. Cut an 18” piece of hemp or other similar weight string (a shoelace, a braided bakery string, etc.)

22. On the opposite side of the button side, sew the hemp in place approximately 1/2 inch from the top of the bag using a zig-zag stitch.

Now it’s time to pack your lunch!

NF

INSPIRATION: Swap-o-rama-rama as seen at Austin ’s Maker Faire 2007

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

* A big room; the school gym for example.
* Large tables (we had fourteen 6’x3’ tables)
* 10 or so large pieces of cardboard or heavy cloth approx. 8’ x 10’
* Sewing machines (we had 5 going at all times) and notions
* Selected fabric with fun patterns with (optional)
* Fusing paper appliqué backing such as Wonder Under or Misty Fuse (optional)
* Piles of buttons (optional)
* Fat markers
* Ironing board (optional)
* Plenty of snacks and water
* A microphone and amplifier (optional)
* Silk screening equipment (optional)

WHO YOU GONNA CALL?:

* Sewers
* Sorters
* Silk Screeners
* Swappers (the more the better)

SET UP:

* Align the tables along one well-lit wall. For each sewing station you will need two tables set up in an “L” shape. Upon each table place one sewing machine at opposite corners facing out.
* Set up the ironing board and one table in an “L” shape.
* Lay the cardboard or cloth out on the floor. These will be used for separating the clothes. Mark these by gender, by item and somewhat by size. For example: BOYS PANTS Size 3T-8. GIRLS DRESSES SIZE 3T-8. BABY CLOTHES 2T and under, etc. For our back-to-school swap we also had adult clothes which we simply separated into tops and bottoms both genders mixed together.
* A row of tables upon which to dump and sort out the incoming bags of clothes.
* Have a water station set up for your volunteers especially and snacks too
* The more spacious the set-up, the easier the event will be. Of course the size of the room determines this but with that in mind, find the biggest room you can lay your hands on.

STATION SERVING SUGGESTIONS:

* Tote bag from a t-shirt*
* Silk screening
* Applique station using the fusing fabric*

WORD OUT:

* Before the event, put a call out to your community in search of seamstresses, silk screeners, and sorters. We are lucky to live in a town where there are many crafters and sewers so we could easily man our stations. Our call for help also brought in seamstresses we had never met before, who had no connection to the school but loved the idea of helping the kids bring their vision to fruition. We sent our announcement out to a few listservs and within days it was circuited throughout the entire city of Austin – via Yahoo groups and email lists. Ah, the beauty of modern day grass roots.

THE DAY OF:

* Once you open the doors, the people will come – so be ready. The more ready you are with your set-up, the more fun you will have and the more fun the attendees will have as well.
* Keep the piles of clothing easily accessible. If one section looks to be getting too big, break it down into smaller sections. For example, our small girls dress and tops pile was ENORMOUS so we broke it down into two separate piles by breaking down the sizes even more than we already had.
* When something really fantastic comes through, like in our case a pair of really cool looking Blue Fluevog shoes, tout it on the microphone. When someone creates some really amazing outfit, like a denim skirt from a pair of jeans complete with appliqués, show it off to demonstrate the possibilities.
* Know that you can do it without all the pomp and circumstance and just hold a regular clothes swap. Fun. But to add the craft stations and silk screening just takes it to a whole different level. To allow people the option to explore totally unique self-expressive fashion is like presenting them with their own beautiful creativity.

THE END:

We had a lot of stuff left over at the end. Piles of stuff really. We asked everyone who was still in attendance to grab a bag and drop it off at their favorite shelter, thrift store or charity. We were lucky also to have a woman come in at the end who worked with a community of recently arrived refugees. We hauled the rest up there in a truck and were greatly received by this small community who were happy to get so much.

The key is do what you can and make it your own!

We’d love to hear from you if you decide to host a clothes swap in your own community.

today we made family gratitue banners in class. the banners have pockets for each family member, plus one for friends and extended family, and one for the universe. each time someone thinks of something they are grateful for, they can jot it down and stick it in the appropriate pocket. this serves us in many ways- we can visit the banner and look in our pocket to read all the ways we inspire gratitude in our family members AND we can reread all of our previously written notes of gratitude to remind ourselves how full our lives are and how much we have to be grateful for…

I don’t think we need to tell you how to sew this one. It’s definitely open for creative interpretation. You can get super fancy-la-fance or you can keep it super simple. Either way, the gratitudes expressed on a regular basis will totally transform your household.

thanks to the amazing and always inspired bernadette for introducing this to us. i’m grateful to have you in my life, bern!!!!