RECYCLING...

Recycling is an important issue and today many people are aware of its necessity. While industrial recycling is controversial and it is argued that advantage and disadvantage is not leveled in a sense of profit and job availability, and in how much energy is needed to obtain a worthy outcome, there is no question about how the environment can be protected, restored and maintained by cleverly reusing materials. More and more efforts are made to obtain this, starting with simple household recycling.

In art and craft recycling has endless possibilities and it is really fun and rewarding to look for ways to create something beautiful, decorative or useful out of "waste".

I had a very pretty long skirt of different colored and textured silk squares, made in Nepal, that I loved and wore for some years. Silk is delicate and tears did happen. I would fix them with scraps from the hem I had saved from shortening the skirt in the beginning. But one day I felt it was enough and it had to go.

I still could not bring myself to toss it out and it was sitting for a while in a drawer of my sewing table. A week ago I wanted to make new hearts, and my eyes fell on that skirt. Well I got fifteen big lovely patchwork hearts out of it that I embellished with old buttons and pieces of crochet lace I had found at the flea market in Yafa, and had darkened with tea. That skirt now lives on for a while longer and the shiny beauty of the silk fabric is still not diminished.