We’ve had an email from Gillian, asking:

how can i recycle my children’s old teddy bears? i don’t have the heart to chuck them in the land fill. any suggestions?

As a previous owner of a large collection of stuffed toy cats, dogs, bunnies and seals, I can understand the reluctance to throw them away.

If they’re in good condition, I’d be tempted to bung them through the wash then give them away to a charity shop or a refuge for another child to enjoy – but they might not be accepted for re-sale/re-distribution if they’ve been loved a little too much in the past.

How about stripping them down for parts instead? Eyes, stuffing and bits of interesting fabric/fur are always welcome additions to a craft collection – but it might feel a little bit like an autopsy ;)

Any other suggestions?

(Photo by lusi)

We’ve had an email from “the Cleworths”, asking a rather interesting question:

A family member died and we are left with a fur coat that charity shops won’t take and neither will any period clothing outlets.

Any advice as how to pass this on other than taking to dump?

I can see why charity shops won’t take them – even though it’s second hand, it’d still be promoting the idea of fur as clothing – but does that mean the coat should just be dumped?

Is there anything that can be done with it that won’t promote the future use of fur – but stops this fur being wasted?

(Photo by markjhandel)

UPDATE: I’ve just deleted about 40 comments of people trying to buy or sell fur coats. I don’t like censoring discussion but this isn’t the place for it or for organising buying/selling stuff and it’s clogging up the comments list. Any future comments of this nature will be deleted too.

Karlie emailed over a clever idea that she saw on the Martha Stewart show recently – shopping bags out of old tshirts:

First the bottom hem of the shirt was sewn closed.

Finally, the sleeves were cut off.

It’s a great idea for t-shirts that are too baggy (ahem) or misshapen to go to charity shops – and when they’re worn out as bags, the fabric can be recycled again anyway.

Any other clever ideas for reusing old tee shirts?

(Photo by goodsignal)

As I mentioned in passing the other day, we hacked up a very old sofa at the weekend. We wanted to give it away for re-use as a sofa but it was in frankly awful condition – thanks to the cats and just years and years of use – we got it at least third hand after it had been a family sofa then used at some offices.

We stripped it down before getting rid of it though – I covered the sofa foam on Monday, the wooden frame has gone into a scrap/fire wood pile, and we’re going to see if we can use the (flat) springs as some kinda notice board and/or use as a support for french beans in the garden next summer.

We also cut off the leather from the bits that weren’t utterly ruined/torn – mostly the back of the sofa and the backs of cushions. They’re quite a soft leather with nice, clean suede on the other side. But what can we do with it?

I always like practical suggestions but am open to crafty ones too – especially if I don’t need to buy special tools for it.

Proof that great minds think alike. An email from Lisa Chown:

We are a manufacturer of knitted acrylic accessories and end up having loads of waste fabric, from the shaping of our products, is there a way that this can be recycled rather than send it to the landfill?

And another one the next day from Katrina:

How can I recycle all the fabric remnants I have lying around?? When I worked in an Interior Design shop in London, I know a charity would come and pick up the fabric waste for recycling. I don’t know who to contact…does anyone have any ideas??

And I also did some sewing on Monday night and had some tiny scraps left over and thought the same thing.

So any ideas? Fabric recycling ideas would be best for Lisa and Katrina since I suspect they’ll have more than can be reused – but what about reuse suggestions for people like me? The scraps I produced were too small to be used on other projects (even patchwork/quilting) – but I guess they could be used for stuffing or things like that… right?

(Photo by CraigPJ)