One thing I love about the green trend is that now I can upcycle a gift and not have to work so hard to make it look new while satisfying my urge to reuse before I recycle. This afternoon, my serger and I turned out a quick upcycled T-shirt bag to hold presents for my 14-year-old nephew. (Well, he'll be 14 tomorrow, and we had his family party this afternoon.) I lifted my serger's cutting blade for step #1 to close off the bottom. Where the instructions say to cut, I used my serger with woolly nylon to finish the edges while also cutting. The part that worked out the best was step #2 where the instructions reminded to trace the shape (I just traced the shape of the front neckline on the back so the two sides match without removing much material).
I was going to embroider his name on the back, but I accidentally put the wrong bobbin in and broke a needle (yes, I was wearing safety glasses) while creating holes in the tee-shirt. Fail! To fix those holes while still adding his name to his gift bag, I cut a letter E out of iron-on patch material and patched the holes in style. His mom and sister were ready to take over the upcycled bag but I pointed out it was personalized! So I guess I should grab some more teeshirts that haven't been worn in years to make more gift bags.
(He got a very sun-faded now light salmon orange but still in good shape tee that said 55 Thunderbird Rock-n-Roll with a picture of a jukebox and a 1955 Ford Thunderbird. And the blue E on the other side to cover the first holes in the shirt from that failed machine embroidery. I just can't use that embroidery machine when I'm in a hurry. I can kick out a quick serger project, and sergers are supposed to be hard, but they're easy for me next to the embroidery monsters. Make sure you master your sewing machine first!)
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