Old clothing can repurposed and reused, given a new life, in short. The UK is the 4th largest producer of textile waste in Europe according to a study, it found that each Briton throws away about 3.1kg of textiles every year, 0.3kg is recycled and 0.4kg is reused. 1.7kg of fashion waste is landfilled yearly per person. Personally, I always take my items to a charity shop and they can then decide what to do with them, but I have never sent anything there that is absolutely done for, I re-use those items (usually old vests and holey t-shirts as dusters and floor cloths etc.)

I thought carefully about the repurposing of old clothes and decided that something should be done from my perspective, using my skills, to upcycle or recycle some old clothing and I came up with the idea of making firstly bags and then cushions out of clothing. In the past I have made these items from old t-shirts, dresses, jeans, jumpers, skirts. Children’s t-shirts are especially good as the designs on the front of them are usually the right size to fit into the centre of a cushion. If it is a screen print of well-known character, then I have only used licensed t-shirts for this. I once used a Kath Kidston wash bag and some jeans to make cushions, the fabric was in good condition, they turned out pretty good. Really if there is enough fabric there then it can be easily used, if there’s not enough then you can use another fabric alongside it.

The clothing may need de-bobbling to get the bobbles off of it and will need washing, ironing, then you’re good to go. The JML Bobble Off is the best device I have found for removing bobbles, it can also be used to get bobbles off of your favourite clothing that has bobbled up, thereby extending its useful life.

Sometimes I have also used fabric from previous projects on cushions and bits of trim as a finishing touch. There’s usually a large percentage recycled in a cushion and sometimes it can all be recycled, apart from the dacron used behind the centre of the cushion to strengthen the t-shirt or fabric there and the cushion pads can be new or the old ones washed and re-shaped back to being square.

The cushions went on to be donated to a charity who then sold them and some were done as orders for customers. These are only a few of the ones which I have made over the years, so that you get an idea of the end product.