Review: Sewing Green

Just a note: this review is part of a larger blog tour that Betz White is doing in support of her new book. To link to the other entries in this tour, visit the STC Craft/Melanie Falick Books blog.

Sewing Green is the latest in what will surely become a large genre of craft books, offering tips and projects for eco-friendly sewing. Many of you are already familiar with Betz White for her charming work with recycled sweaters. Here, she branches out into lots of other directions.

I think my favorite parts of Sewing Green are the sections and projects dealing with thrifted materials. There’s a great guide to thrift shopping, including how to prep your finds for craft projects.

Here’s one (great) thrift-score transformation: this is a denim skirt, transformed into a roomy tote. The genius part is how the bottom of the skirt is folded to the outside, creating those big outer pockets. Love the appliques, too.

I’m also dang enamored with this wrap skirt, which is patterned in gores (sections) so you can cut it from vintage linens and work around stains and flaws in the fabric. The construction, too, is very slick – no tricky waistband-buttonhole!

Incidentally, the patterns for every project requiring one are bound into a big removable pattern sheet, tacked to the back cover of the book.

You’ll find quite a few recycled wool and recycled sweater projects in here as well (such as that pretty cover scarf above). This wrap made from cashmere sweaters is beautiful, and would be well worth the amount of searching it would take to accumulate that much thrifted cashmere.

Sprinkled in among the projects, Betz has profiles of several eco-friendly seamsters (including Wendy Tremaine, creator of Swap-O-Rama-Rama), which adds a nice dimension of philosophy and food for thought.

In addition to the thrift-score transformations, Betz has a number of projects designed to be made from new fabrics, and she offers some tips on buying organic and environmentally-friendly ones. These projects are all designed with sustainable living in mind, such as these cloth produce bags to take to the grocery store. You’ll also find a cloth lunch bag, a reusable sandwich wrap, baby washcloths, and others.

Betz describes the project set in Sewing Green as “advanced beginner to intermediate,” and I think this is right on. There are a few diagrams of key steps, but most of the step-by-step instructions are in text form. So it would probably be a good idea if you’ve sewn at least a few simple projects before you dive in here.

For the challenge-minded, there are projects that make use of interesting non-fabric materials, like this great auto windshield shade. Betz describes it as “disturbingly easy” to amass this many juice pouches at the average kids’ soccer game.

There’s also an awesome tote made from Tyvek shipping envelopes.

Definitely give this one a look next time you’re in the bookstore. And let’s hope that all those eco-friendly craft books to come do as good a job of living up to that moniker as Sewing Green does.

Tagged as: craft book, review, useful crafts