Recycling Jeans

The Jesse budcozy, coming soon...

I'm looking forward to finding some time to finish up the next limited edition budcozy. These will be made from a bunch of jeans and some vintage-style red buttons. Thinking her name will be Jesse. The jeans shown here are Miss Sixty's. I've also got some Paper Demin Cloth and Sevens ready to go. Might also do a second button option for a more gender neutral look, something along the lines of a metal rivet.

Recycling tshirts, dresses and jeans has been a good way to keep this project interesting. I've been looking at my wardrobe in a whole new way. MJ has been a loyal scissor ninja, keeping me motivated, and supplying her friends with budcozys. One of them even sent me something from their closet to try. I can see this becoming a really fun aspect. If only I had clones of myself and didn't enjoy sleeping so much. Plus, the new-ish day job has been really interesting and keeps me plenty busy by itself.

Things I'm Searching For. Any Advice?

Professional Snapper
Little did I know that most small sewing shops refuse to install snaps. I tried a local button and pleating company for my recent batch of budcozys but this experience was not ideal. After a series of attempts, they ended up doing an acceptable job but it was too painful to work with them.

Organic Cotton Clothing Tags
Do these even exist? Or possibly in some other sustainable fiber? I'm pretty much out of my tags, and before ordering more I'd like to try to get them in an eco-friendly form. UPDATE: A great idea came in via comments. Wanted to explain a bit about the tag. It's an integral and functional element to help pull budcozy up/down, so while there are other great solutions to branding the budcozy I definitely want to keep the tag. But overall something to figure out ...

New Things

Now that I've expanded into the sewing and eco-business world, there is a whole slew of online resources I've been collecting.

Greener Printer, in Berkeley
Once I'm ready to move on from my ink jet printer I'll be looking for a professional resource. This company is 100% wind powered, certfied green, and use soy and vegetable based inks.

JHB Buttons
Tons and tons of buttons you can order online.

The Button Drawer
More buttons.

1% For the Planet
Another item for my to-do list.

Trademark Information
If you are suffering from insomnia and need a good trick to help yourself fall asleep, then this is the place for you.

Clothing Labels 4 U
Affordable fabric tags in smaller units if you're just starting out.

Buttons and Smoothies

Fabric Outlet on Mission Street is my favorite fabric store. First of all, the staff is so incredibly friendly. They never rush you and always have helpful advice. I don't go on the weekends so that might help. Second, they have great sales and always a huge bin of discount and discontinued buttons for super cheap. One of the staff helped me dig through the bin and I got a bunch of red vintage style buttons for a denim limited edition budcozy I'm working on. The store is a bit worn around the edges but that gives it some old school character. I like how you enter on street level down a wide and open staircase which gives you a birds eye view of the store. Today, I stopped in to pick up my order of Samantha budcozy heart buttons and more pipe cleaners. MJ came with me and petted bolts of fabric in their vast furry section while sipping her berry bliss smoothie.

We got smoothies from a small window on a street I will not name. I hope this place stays quiet because even in today's heatwave there wasn't much of a wait. They seem to have steady business but it would really suck if it became as bad a wait like Sushi Zone (which I miss dearly). I had my usual fave, banana and acai. Yum.

Hemp Factoid

Wiki says: "Hemp requires little to no pesticides, replenishes soil with nutrients and nitrogen, controls erosion of the topsoil, and produces lots of oxygen, considering how fast it grows. Furthermore, Hemp could be used to replace many potentially harmful products, such as tree paper (the process of which uses bleaches and other toxic chemicals, apart from contributing to deforestation), cosmetics (which often contain synthetic oils that can clog pores and provide little nutritional content for the skin), plastics (which are petroleum based and cannot decompose), and more."

While hemp is still illegal to grow in the US, I get my hemp fabric (and bamboo and organic cotton) from a local SF importer Pickering International.