Recycle old jeans to make draft excluder

I have been collecting old jeans for years now, not for any purpose but because I can't bear to throw them away, especially as some of them are so expensive.  But these jeans have become unwearable as they have completely worn away in places, particularly in the crotch area!

As we have been experiencing a particularly cold winter here in England I decided to put the old jeans to good use and have made patchwork draft excluders out of them (willy worms as I like to call them).  I even made one for my brother.  They turned out better than I had hoped and so I decided to share what I had done.

1. I started by measuring the width of the door, and then cut out a template using left over Christmas wrapping paper.  The wrapping paper was great as it had a grid drawn on the wrong side.  I then cut out a second template but this time cut it into random shapes to make the patches.  (My cat José sneaked into this photo)

2. I then cut out the patches from the jeans using my templates, and planned how I was going to fit them together.  This is where I found it useful to have the large template so I could figure out what to put where, I liked mixing up the different colours that I had. 

3. I then sewed the patches together.  I'm lucky enough to have inherited a sewing machine, but I'm sure it could be done by hand.

4.  Follow steps 2 & 3 so that you have two pieces of patchwork material

5. Place the two pieces together right sides facing.  Sew along the two longs sides and one of the short sides.  Then put your arm inside and pull the draft excluder the right way out.

6. Stuff it with any left over scraps of material, I also use tights that have laddered and old holey socks (washed first of course!)

7. You are then just left with sewing up the open end, this is my least favourite part of making these as I try to make it neat and I hand sew it, but I find it time consuming and I seem to jab myself a lot with the needle.

And it's done!

Fair trade summer fashion

I've been looking online at some of the high street stores to see what fair trade summer clothes they have (I'm going on holiday in a couple of weeks, woo hoo). I like shopping online because it's easy and less stressful than trapsing around shops getting hot and bothered.

To my disappointment I couldn't really find anything. Topshop did have a few items, a number of which were from People Tree but I would rather go to the People Tree site directly as there is much more choice.

I guess I'm feeling disappointed that there isn't much available from the high street. I'm going to keep looking anyway and will let you know if I find anything fab.

Great trouser offer

You're going to have to act fast to take advantage of this great offer from People Tree ending tonight.

They are giving 30% off their summer trouser range, the trousers really do look great and even offer petite sizes which is fantastic for me being a debatable 5' 3".

Super fair trade tees

Check out Fair and Bear, the site is pretty similar to Threadless in that you (yes you) can submit your own t-shirt designs and get paid money stuffs if they are printed.

If like me you lack in design ability then you can peruse t-shirts, score some of the designs and of course buy the t-shirts. The big advantage that Fair and Bear have is that they are printing the designs on fair trade cotton tees plus you won't get smacked with an import duty as they are based in the UK unlike Threadless who are in the US.

Here goes.......

I'd love to be able to shop knowing that the clothes I buy are made by people who get a fair wage and good working conditions but sadly this isn't the case. Many of the high street stores now stock some items that are fair trade but they can be difficult to find and sometimes expensive.

So, my plan is to share information with anyone listening when I find a store which has nice fair trade clothes, jewellery, handbags or anything else that I think looks fab and hopefully I'll get some photo's so that you can see what I'm going on about. Hey and who knows maybe someone will speak back and let me know what they've found too!