Back at the beginning of September I made a pledge via Wardrobe Refashion that I was really excited about:

“I, Em, pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of “new” manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 4 months. I pledge that i shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovoted, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that thy thriftiness brings! Signed Em.”

I am pleased to report that, bar some new boots (which I really needed and had been hunting charity shops for to no avail), I have managed to refrain from buying any new items of clothing. I have only managed to refashion/create two items of clothing so far, which I am disappointed with, as I would love to make more. However I am pleased with what I have made (although only one of them has so far made it out of the house!). You can see my first refashion here on the Wardrobe Refashion blog.

I am really enjoying this pledge, and it really makes you think more about reusing the clothes you have, and makes you look at clothes in charity shops in a different way – you start looking at shapes you like and working out how they were put together, or finding clothes in a fabric you like and wondering how you can alter them to make them fit. It’s great fun, I would really recommend it!

Wardrobe Refashion are actually accepting new pledges right now, so if you like the sound of it, why not make your own pledge? You can choose from a number of different timescales for your pledge (from 2 months to lifetime!) and the community is a great support and full of fabulous ideas! I think I will sign up again once I have finished my pledge (although maybe after the January sales – not sure I can resist those!) and hopefully will be able to get more involved with it next time.

Hello all! I am another new corner for this fabulous blog. My name is Em, although I am known online as Fearful Penguin. I am based in Saltaire, West Yorkshire and I love to craft! I try my hand at all sorts of crafts and love learning and experimenting with new techniques. My current loves are sewing and altering clothes, of which I am sure you will see blog posts about in the future!

Today, however, I wanted to show off the rainbow crochet cushion I made as a present for a friend. I’m not particularly fast at crochet and this is the biggest item I have ever crocheted. It was mainly made on the train whilst travelling to and from work – this is what I love about crochet, it is one of the few forms of craft that you can easily do anywhere – I crochet on trains, buses, in cafes and even in pubs! It was made by making five different squares (one large, four small) and then fastening them together using single crochet, which meant that whichever part I was working on at the time was easily transportable.

This cushion has taken me over a month to make, but I am very proud of the final product – it is perfect for my friend and she loved it!