There are so many ways to repurpose your old clothes that you never need to throw them away. Try some of these brilliant ideas.
Making toys and accessories
1) Old baby clothes can be used to make lovely soft stuffed toys for babies. You can use free-motion sewing to add features – just sew different shapes together until you get the result you want. Making your own soft toys means you know exactly what is in them and that they are safe for your baby.
2) Scraps of patterned fabric from skirts or dresses can be made into flowers to wear in your hair. Back them with white cotton fabric and sew a decorative button in the centre to finish them.
3) Use old T-shirts to create colourful pompoms to decorate clothes. Cut thin strips in a continuous length from the T-shirt and use this as you would use wool to make a pompom with a cardboard template.
4) T-shirts can also be used to make strong and flexible shopping bags that are easy to fold and keep in your handbag.
5) Old jeans are ideal for converting into draught excluders – just stuff the denim tubes with offcuts of material.
The Telegraph offers more ideas for helping the environment as Earth Day, which is on 22 April, draws near.
Other ways of repurposing clothes
6) Without sewing, you could change a scarf into a stylish wrapped skirt, which is especially useful on the beach.
7) A nightshirt or large T-shirt can easily be repurposed into comfortable shorts with an elasticated waist. Make them as long or short as you like.
8) Another idea for a large T-shirt is to convert it into a strapless dress for summer. Just cut it across below the armholes, hem, and attach elastic to the reverse. Stretch the elastic as you sew.
9) A man’s shirt can be repurposed into a top. Either pleat or gather a rectangle of fabric cut from the shirt and attach it to a yoke. You could use a contrasting fabric from a company such as https://www.higgsandhiggs.com/fabrics/plain-cotton-fabric.html for this.
10) If you have a few pairs of old jeans to use, why not make a quilt with strips of denim interspersed with strips of flannel? This is great for boys and is also hard-wearing.
