Some teas come in cloth tea bags that can’t be composted, so instead of throwing them in the garbage,
here’s a great way to upcycle the bags into yarn that you can weave with (or knit or crochet).
I’ve made a video about how to cut the cloth tea bags into fabric yarn-
What can you do with upcycled tea bag yarn?
Weave with it as if it’s regular yarn… for instance, here are a Star , a Dragonfly and Heart woven on pin looms that I designed for Dewberry Ridge Looms
Or: Make upcycled brooches- here’s a video showing how:
More videos about weaving with teabag yarn –
How to Weave Using Upcycled Teabag Yarn 2 Nails at a Time on Pin Looms:
I have loved wooden dolls all my life and have made many, many of them throughout my life.
More than 20 years ago, I began a series of flat wooden dolls that I called: ‘Merrie Sunshine’.
I’ve worked with Merrie Sunshine off and on for all these years, but until the pandemic unfolded, it didn’t occur to me to make a mermaid sister for Merrie Sunshine.
I’ve been working on larger articulated wooden mermaids and it was these dolls that brought Merrie Sunshine to mind,
and then inspired me to give Merrie Sunshine a mermaid sister.
Here are Merrie Sunshine and Minnie Moonbeam with my most recent wooden mermaid (the inspiration for all this)
I asked Donna and Gary McFarland of Dewberry Ridge Looms if they would be interested in making
unpainted, unfinished Merrie Sunshine and Minnie Moonbeam dolls that people would then be able
to make uniquely their own.
They said that they would, and so here are what the dolls look like fresh out of the envelope from Donna and Gary:
MERRIE SUNSHINE: LINK TO ORDER from Dewberry Ridge Looms
and
MINNIE MOONBEAM MERMAID: LINK TO ORDER from Dewberry Ridge Looms
I have made 4 videos that show how to paint or color or decoupage the dolls to make them uniquely your own and how to stitch the dolls together
LINKS TO “HOW TO ASSEMBLE AND EMBELLISH MERRIE SUNSHINE AND MINNIE MOONBEAM DOLLS’
PART 1- How to’s for the Face, Hair and all kinds of things:
PART 2- More Embellishing
PART 3- How to use Washi tape and origami paper to dress the dolls:
PART 4- How to stitch the dolls together:
Here’s a little inspiration for the Merrie Sunshine Dolls”
and a glimpse of how I have embellished some Minnie Moonbeam Mermaid dolls:
And, dolls need clothes, right?
So, I have designed an eBook of CROCHETED DOLL clothes for Merrie Sunshine and Minnie Moonbeam
I made this video and some others before all the grieving and conversation about needing to completely re-create the world as we have known it.
It felt to me that it was important to just be quiet and listen and learn and contemplate and donate and try and figure out how to move forward, so I didn’t post any videos for awhile.
I am convinced that it is essential to keep creating beauty, and so I am offering my videos again.
This one is about a process that delighted me- I figured out a way of making woven leaves and petals so I could make lovely woven flowers for some tapestries that I have been working on.
I hope that my work can be a source of inspiration and spark imagination as we all come together to build a world based on love, compassion and kindness.
I have been enjoying weaving kitchen cloths on the Pro Size and Mighty Big Mamma potholder looms with old crochet cotton odds and ends that I have bought at Thrift Shops over the years.
The fabric that weaves up from the upcycled crochet cotton is lovely.
I decided to experiment with bias weave for the kitchen cloths (save those precious trees and use cloths instead of paper towels- yay!) and I love how it has turned out.
Here’s a link to the video showing how to weave bias on the Pro size and Mighty Big Mamma potholder looms- it’s really fun to weave, and the cloths are great.
If you’d like me to make a pattern for the woven Albert Einstein please let me know 🙂
One of the lovely things that people are doing during the pandemic is to hang hearts in the window to cheer up passers by.
This video shows some of the window hearts that I have woven on the 6 inch heart loom that I designed and Dewberry Ridge Looms makes.
The woven window hearts are a great way to use upcycled t-shirt yarn, fabric strips made from torn up worn out household linens or outgrown clothing or bulky yarn or roving or 6 inch potholder loom loops.
I embellished some of the hearts with little dolls that I made from my Rosie Recycle eBook: LINK
Mermaids are a beautiful metaphor for staying afloat, no matter how hard the waves may crash upon the rocks.
This video tutorial shows how I took the idea of Yarn Baby (Tassle) dolls and created Mermaids with a little bit of yarn, a whole lot of love and a little bit of head scratching.
Oh, yes, also a few sneezes are included with love from our aged rescued Chihuahua mystery mix dear old dog who seems to respond to the making of video by coming into the studio and sneezing loudly whenever the video camera is turned on. Why? Who knows?
Anyhow, I hope that you will enjoy making Yarn Dolly Mermaids!
For many years, I have adopted all the stray balls of crochet cotton that I have found at the thrift shop.
I have happily been using them in many different ways, but now they are coming together to be upcycled into lovely kitchen cloths to use instead of paper towels.
They are a pleasure to weave on potholder looms and are lovely and soft.
While we are all holding the fort at home, let’s create some beauty, and enjoy the sweet pleasure of weaving on simple looms!
Here’s the video I made about this very satisfying form of upcycling.
