How to Recycle Old T-Shirts Into New Underwear

(Update: after living with these underwear for a while there are some changes that I would make next time. The first is that I might consider doing something else with the leg openings - like adding elastic there. I would also add another layer of fabric in the crotch since that will also make them last longer. If you just need a super quick pair and you don’t care about the additional steps go ahead and make them this way! They still lasted quite a while this way!)

This post is a little different from my usual offerings, but in the spirit of zero-waste and DIY and all of that, I wanted to post this tutorial to make your own underwear from fabric you were probably going to give away or throw away. You might not have thought to make your own underwear before - and truly I didn't really consider it either - but it turned out that it was really easy to do! Let's be honest too - women's underwear is not always the cheapest, and you can't always find your favourite, most comfortable ones in stores again after they've worn out. This solved both problems for me, so I figured I'd post it up here and share what I learned. If you're not interested - feel free to keep scrolling and you'll find recipes and harvest totals and foraging guides down further below. I won't be offended if you skip reading this one!

Here's what you'll need:

• One t-shirt (I got two pairs of underwear out of one adult men's medium shirt)

• Paper to trace a pattern on

• Pair of underwear to copy a pattern from

• Sewing machine capable of a zigzag stitch 

• Thread

• 1/8" elastic

• Sharp scissors, measuring tape, pins, etc

This first step is probably the most difficult of all of them. You need to choose a pair of underwear you are going to copy, and make a pattern from them. The most foolproof way of doing this is to sacrifice that pair and cut them apart at the seams, and then trace them onto paper. If you don't want to do that, you can lay them flat on paper and try to trace them that way (this is what I did). If you look at the paper in the left photo you can see that the piece on the bottom is folded in half - this is because I folded the underwear I was copying in half and found it easier to trace the shape that way. 

Make sure you add a little bit extra - about 1/4" - when you trace the pattern so that when you sew it together it remains the right size.

A little bit of messy stitching, but it's not going to be visible in the end product. If your sewing skills are rusty, or you're new at this don't let this keep you from trying this project - it's really easy and forgiving if you make a few mistakes!

Steps to making your underwear:

1. Pin the paper pattern you've created to the t-shirt. If your shirt is too small to fit both pieces you'll need to cut the front from the back so you can get both the front and back pattern pieces to fit. If they both fit without altering the t-shirt you are going to end up with enough pieces to make two pairs of underwear.

2. Pin the crotch seams together. If your fabric has a "right" and "wrong" side (eg: if there is a pattern that is more visible on one side than the other, the pattern side is the "right" side that you want facing out for the end project) make sure the right sides are together when you sew them. 

3. Sew the crotch seam in a zigzag stitch very close to the edge - about 1/4" away to match the seam allowances you left when you were creating your pattern.

4. Pin the side seams together (still keeping the right sides together) and sew them in the same way you did the crotch seam. At the end of this you should have what looks like a pair of inside-out underwear! You're almost done!

5. Measure the waistband of the underwear and cut a piece of elastic that is slightly smaller than it. Keep it just slightly smaller because you don't want the elastic cutting into you while you wear them, but you do want them snug enough that they stay up!

6. Sew the elastic ends together so the whole thing is in a loop.

7. Pin the elastic around the very top of the waistband. Try to do this in even sections so that the extra slack in the fabric is evenly distributed around the elastic. Ideally you don't want it bunching more in one spot than others.

8. Sew the elastic to the very top of the underwear fabric using a zigzag stitch. Stretch your elastic as you go so it matches the slack in your underwear. If it's not perfect, don't worry. This is a very forgiving process and it probably won't be very visible.

9. Fold the elastic over one more time so the fabric of the underwear is covering the elastic (notice in my photo above I didn't do this perfectly, but it doesn't really matter in the end since it's going to be hidden on the inside). It's a little bit fiddly, so just do your best and try again next time if it wasn't as perfect as you'd like. Sew this folded down elastic down again with a zigzag stitch remembering to stretch the elastic out just like last time.

10. Using an iron, press your seams. You don't need to do anything to your raw edges because t-shirt fabric naturally doesn't fray!

That's it! If you give this a try and have any pointers for me please leave them in the comments! I'd love to hear about it if any of you do try this out at home!

Make a Hops Bine Wreath

A lot of the time when I'm foraging, I am looking for something I can eat, but I also have my eyes peeled for things that I can use in my home.  Occasionally I find something that does double duty!

I posted on Instagram a while back this summer (and again in my summer recap post) about a local fruit stand that was forced to close down due to the highway expansion.  This was a really cool place where you used to be able to get ice cream, fresh juice, local produce, coffee, and even swap a book for a new one in their lending library.  The fruit stand shared the property with a mechanic's shop, and between the two an avenue of hops bines swayed in the wind. 

When we found out that the stand was closing I asked about the hops since we were interested in growing them.  I found out that they were originally rhisomes taken from crowns from Crannóg Ales in Sorrento, BC, but that the owner of the stand had no idea which was which.  We cut down some bines (yes, bines is the correct term - not vines) and dug up some of the crowns to try and plant them in our garden.  The hops currently on the bines were a bit past their prime, so we picked what we considered usable for brewing and dried those, and from the stripped bines I twisted together this wreath.  Our house smelled so intensely of hops for about a week!  I also tucked in some of the really dried out flowers (unusable for brewing) to decorate it.  These aren't structural, so I'll decide whether I always want them to be there, but for now I think they are perfect.

This was the first time I have made my own wreath without using some sort of form or other structure to get me started.  I was really excited about making a big wreath since I find the larger ones in the store to be quite expensive, and this would be completely free!  There are a lot of different ideas on the internet as far as how to put them together, but what I chose to do is:

1. Take one of the longest bines and make a circle roughly the shape you want your finished wreath to be but a little smaller.
2. Twist the rest of the bine around and around and around. 
3. Tuck the next bine in and keep twisting.
4. Keep going until all your bines are a part of the wreath.
5. Lay flat until the bines dry out completely.

Hopefully you can see by the photos how I was twisting them.  The good news is that you can make this using any kind of sturdy vine like grape, or Virginia creeper.  Have fun experimenting and see what you come up with!  I am really happy with the results of my wreath.

Using a Potato Tower in the Garden

As you can see our garden is a bit challenged when it comes to space.  We are renters right now and we consider ourselves lucky to have the space that we have.  I could just go at gardening as more of a hobby, but I consider it a personal challenge to try to feed my family as much as possible from our tiny little plot.  One important step to this is encouraging vertical growth whenever possible.  This makes peas and beans no-brainers, but there are some other veggies in this category that might not be initially thought of. One of these is potatoes.

This is our potato bin.  I wish I took a photo of it right at the beginning, but I wasn't thinking of writing a blog post about the project at that point so that got neglected.  Basically we used a couple pallets and Mr. Foraged and I worked together on an idea that might work.  

I've grown potatoes in grow bags before, and grown them in a raised bed with the more traditional method of 'hilling up'.  This potato tower method was sort of a combination of the two.  I was also influenced by some reading I did on other traditional ways people grew tomatoes - one of which was to grow them in straw.  This was the real key to keeping our idea cost effective!

What we ended up doing was screwing together a four by four square with four posts going up from each corner.  We then covered the ground inside it with newspaper to discourage weeds, and then covered that with a few inches of good manure and compost.  We planted our potatoes in that and then covered it with a good six inches of straw.  

Then as the potatoes grew we kept adding slats and filling it up with more straw.  I made sure to keep a few inches of the potato leaves visible from under the straw to make sure the plants still had access to sunlight.

A major benefit to this method - aside from saving cost and space - that I can see is that the job of harvesting should be much easier!  I'm thinking we'll spread out a tarp and then unscrew the slats on one side and then just pull everything out.  The potatoes should be pretty clean from just growing in straw, and we won't accidentally poke any with a potato fork.  It will also make it really easy to get in to grab a few early baby potatoes!  Of course it remains to be seen if this even works for growing potatoes.  So far we have beautiful looking plants, but I don't know what is going on underneath right now.  We'll have to wait and see!  I will definitely update when it comes time to really put this method to the test!