Most people tend to accumulate sizeable piles of old clothes that generally get discarded after some time or else languish in a box for decades together. But the truth is that old clothes can be reinvented for many purposes. Besides saving you a lot of money, this is a proactive step towards saving the environment.
It often happens that you have invested in some good quality clothes that you do not want to discard. Old clothes end up wasting a lot of space in the house and you often end up wondering where so many came from in the first place!
You can re-purpose old clothes in several interesting ways. It’s actually rather fun and exciting to sit down and come up with creative ideas to remodel old clothes. Read on for some tips:
- Make a quilt: If you have old winter clothing, you could consider putting them together to form a quilt. Materials like flannel lend themselves to quilt making quite well. You can also mix and match square patches from different clothes to create a colourful quilt with bright patches of colour. If it is a baby quilt that you want, ensure that you stitch on a soft lining underneath the material.
- Use tie-and-dye to colour old clothes and stitch them together to make a nice throw rug. You can unleash your imagination for colours and shapes – throw rugs can be made into just about any shape that you like.
- Use the arm portions of old sweaters to create some scarves or mufflers. Cut off the arm portions neatly and then stitch them up in a linear formation to the length you want.
- Similarly, the thicker arm band pr waist band portions of sweater arms can be reused to make warm cosies for keeping your teacup warm.
- If you have huge sizes of old clothes, the cloth can be reused for smaller clothes for younger children.
- Old crocheted materials make excellent table cloths. Cut into a square or rectangular shape (you can join two or more) and run a stitch along the boundary to hold in loose hanging threads.
- Most families usually always have some pairs of old jeans. Jeans can be re-purposed in several useful ways. For example, you could consider making pen holders out of the pockets. Jeans is also an excellent material to make into handbags. You can stitch on some metal buttons or studs to give it a trendy look.
Do you have any ideas on how you can re-use old clothes and turn them into something new or useful? We’d love to hear your ideas and tips. We also have a new Craft Room area in our forums so why not pop along and share your ideas there too?
