How to Be a Green Seamstress

I have been a self-employed seamstress for twenty-five years in Ohio. I have always worked from my home in a residential area. I have not only saved myself the rent of a store-front business, but have eliminated the commute, saving gasoline, automobile and other travel expenses. Working at home is a green solution. There is not a car to fill a junkyard and I am not contributing to greenhouse gases.

But, everyone knows that, don't they?

How am I different, and how can this help you?

Here are some of the ways I save money and help the environment while doing so

I order fabrics online. Most mail-order and internet fabric companies only sell in full-yards. What do I do with the extra fabric? I sell it on e-bay. Someone out there can use it. And they do. I get rid of everything I don't need or will never use. This keeps someone else from having to buy another piece of the same fabric, thereby reducing its production.

What do I do with the leftover fabric I can use? I make gifts for bridal and baby showers, such as rag rugs and small quilts. The amount of rags and fabric a rug uses is phenomenal. One brown paper shopping bag full of usable rags makes an oval rug only two by three feet.

What do I do with the totally unusable scraps, those too small to quilt or use in a rug? I found a hand made paper maker who is happy to receive a box of scraps periodically to shred further into fiber for her projects.

There is absolutely no waste when I am done.

I shop garage sales for notions, like elastic and thread. Many consumers are happy to get rid of their stock, since sewing is becoming an obsolete pastime.

I use local sources for packaging materials for shipping e-bay items and sewandso.etsy.com sales. A local furnace installation company, AirExcellence, saves bubble wrap and packing peanuts for me. This one business fills all my needs for padding. I make my own boxes from large shipping cartons, such as those for furnaces. Another excellent source of cardboard is a local garage door installation business. The garage door panels are in long, unmarked boxes, and each door panel is separated by foam sheeting. Our local installation company allows e-bay sellers to search its dumpsters for reusable packing materials.

I take advantage of internet banking to reduce mail. I pay everything with a credit card that I can. This reduces all my bill payments to one envelope.

I sharpen my own scissors. Fiskars has a wonderful sharpener for under $10.00. Just ask for it at your local fabric store or order online.

Finally, I have found that suit sized plastic garment bags double as kitchen trash bags. All you have to do is tape the small hole where the hanger sticks out, and nothing will leak through. The thinner bags from dry cleaners may have to be doubled for strength.

For more hints, see my blog site at www.sewandso.wordpress.com