Posts Tagged ‘Earth Day’

From Our Readers: Brenda!

Happy Earth Day, friends! Today’s “from our readers” feature introduces Brenda, a Canadian expat living it up in Mexico and slashing up old T-shirts whenever she can. She asked me a question over Twitter awhile ago, and I was just too slow in answering (I do so understand when the scissors start getting a little twitchy, and one needs to forge on!), so Brenda, resourceful lady that she is, found a design on the Internets to help fulfill her vision (if anyone knows the source, let me know so I can properly link it! UPDATE: Properly linked to the source shirt!). See the result of Brenda’s T-shirt snipping (white T-shirt, left).

And this one (green T-shirt, right), inspired by the butterfly variation on the slashed “Brokenhearted Tee” (project #2 in Generation T: 108 Ways to Transform a T-shirt):

Happy Earth Day to all! What sweet T-shirt hacks are on your creative calendar? What are you making next?

[ Comments Off on From Our Readers: Brenda! | Posted on April 22nd, 2013 ]

How to: Rollover Tank Top

The Rollover tank top (project #42 in Generation T: 108 Ways to Transform a T-shirt) is located on pages 110 and 111 and was cut and stitched from my well-worn lavender Keep Earth Alive: RECYCLE T-shirt. Congratulations to Kiki, who wins a signed copy of Generation T: Beyond Fashion for being the first of our finalists to email me all the correct info!

And congratulations to the rest of you, too! Your sweet runner-up prize is this T-shirt tutorial for that Rollover tank top.

Materials:

1 T-shirt

measuring tape

scissors

tailor’s chalk

straight pins

needle

thread

Make it:

1. Lay the T-shirt flat and cut a 8″-wide loop off the bottom of the shirt. Set it aside.

2. Measure and mark 12″ from the new bottom of the shirt. Cut horizontally across at that mark through both layers of fabric. Then snip through the side of the loop, creating a long rectangular strip.

3. Lay the strip flat and mark a length equal to your bust measurement (x) along the long edge of the rectangle. Cut vertically to remove the excess fabric.

4. Fold the rectangle in half lengthwise, right sides together. Pin along the short ends and sew the edge with a whipstitch.

5. Remove the pins. Turn the resulting 12″-high tube right side out and lay it flat. Turn the loop from step 1 inside out and center it above the 12″ tube so that its bottom (cut) edge meets the 12″ tube’s top edge.

6. From both sides of the 12″ tube, measure 2 1/2″ in and mark with the chalk. Pin the tubes together between the two marked points and sew along the pinned edge using a whipstitch. Remove the pins.

7. Flip the shirt over and repeat step 6 on the back.

8. Try on the shirt and roll the top tube over 4″ to 5″ so the right side of the fabric is facing out. Rollover is complete!

Variations:

This project is excerpted from Generation T: 108 Ways to Transform a T-shirt (Workman 2006).

[ 1 Comment | Posted on April 24th, 2011 ]

Earth Day Giveaway Finalists!

And the five finalists chosen at random from the yesterday’s Earth Day Giveaway entries are Jessica W., Susan B., Kiki, Martha, and Anne N. St. Louis! Finalists, listen up:

My old Keep Earth Alive: RECYCLE T-shirt appears in the pages of Generation T: 108 Ways to Transform a T-shirt. The first of you five finalists to e-mail me (megan at generation-t.com) and correctly identify 1) the page number on which it appears, 2) the name of the project transformation, and 3) the color of the shirt (yes, that’s a hint), wins a signed copy of Generation T: Beyond Fashion: 120 New Ways to Transform a T-shirt. I’ll announce the winner tomorrow, Sunday April 24, 2011.

Good luck!

xo, Megan/ Generation T

[ 1 Comment | Posted on April 23rd, 2011 ]

Happy Earth Day from Generation T!

Circle ’round for for a brief, heart-warming, and perhaps eerily prophetic story from my childhood. (And read till the end–there’s a treat.)

In 1988, my town’s annual Earth Day poster contest held a special prize: The winning design was to be printed on T-shirts that would be distributed to students at the Sandwich Central Elementary School and available for sale to parents and other adults in the community. There I was, a young girl armed with passion for the earth, appreciation for the animals and plants that live on it, a full box of markers, and a blank sheet of paper.  My message was simple: Keep Earth Alive: RECYCLE. The words wrapped around a drawing of the earth, each continent and ocean playing host to an animal native to its land or water. I remember drawing the antlers of a moose in North America, the oversize beak of a toucan in South America, a humpback whale in the Atlantic… At top right is the newspaper clipping my mom saved to commemorate the event of my winning the contest–my two sisters are with me showing off the T-shirts. Though the poster, which I had so carefully colored in, was to be printed in black and white, the T-shirts, at least, ranged in color. My sisters each chose green and blue T-shirts, respectively, while my dad ordered the vibrant pink T-shirt shown here. He wore it for many years, and it bears a few ink stains–the requisite mark of an art teacher.

In the spirit of Earth Day contests, here’s one for you: Before midnight tonight, let us know in the comments what you’re doing to celebrate Earth Day, and be automatically entered to win a signed copy of Generation T: Beyond Fashion. Here’s where it gets interesting: Five finalists will be drawn at random and announced on the site tomorrow, April 23, 2011 at noon EST. A final challenge will be issued and the first of the finalists to correctly answer the trivia question posed is the winner! (Hint: Having a copy of Generation T: 108 Ways to Transform a T-shirt on hand for reference will be infinitely helpful.)

[ 10 Comments | Posted on April 22nd, 2011 ]

From Our Readers: Willow and Ella!

For their school Earth Day project this year, Willow and her pal Ella (who attended my bookstore event at Bayswater Book Co. in March, and who happen to attend the same elementary school that I graduated from!) decided to grab their scissors and encourage textile reuse by example. They rescued a whole slew of T-shirts from the backs of their closets and refashioned them, Generation T-style, into one-of-a-kind tops, skirts, and dresses. Spring wardrobe, here we come!

Thanks Willow and Ella for sharing a really great way to celebrate Earth Day–what about you? Think on it…you’ll have the opportunity to share it in the comments on tomorrow’s post!

[ Comments Off on From Our Readers: Willow and Ella! | Posted on April 21st, 2011 ]