Everyone should have some basic sewing skills such as sewing a button back on or taking up a hem. This allows you to take in or let out the side seams of jeans from skinny to wide as fashion or figure dictates instead of buying new. Mending and transforming prolongs the life of good quality and treasured items. Sew some cool scraps or patches over moth holes or turn a shrunken sweater into a throw pillow.

Garage sales, swaps and charity sales are great sources of fabric for scrap quilting and other sewing projects. A family member has scored metres of Liberty print cotton for $4.00 total or less (it's normally upwards of $100.00 per yard from the Liberty store in London). More and more fabric stores are closing and the quality and durability of new clothes has really declined (not to mention the distance travelled and the working conditions of the factories), so alternate sources of fabric are the wave of the future. Try sourcing environmentally friendly fibres with safe dyes on-line. Hemp silk is now available. It's not just for t-shirt cotton anymore!

In the meantime, the library has some great books that inspire green sewing projects:

Sewing Green and Sew Eco focus on sustainability and re-use.

Denim Revolution- What to make when cutoffs don't cut it.

Generation T-This book and its sequel show you how tomake yourself a cool halter top and other clothes from the humungous t-shirts found in abundance everywhere.

Dozens of ways to Repurpose Scarves and Dozens of ways to Repurpose Pillowcases-fun quick projects when you're inside over the winter.

And there's always scrap quilting...