Diane Gilleland x Mr. Cart: Reviving old T-shirts with fabric patches

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Consumption is a word used to describe acts of acquisition – generally, the acquisition of things, in exchange for money.

Unconsumption is a word used to describe everything that happens after an act of acquisition.

Unconsumption is an invisible badge.

Unconsumption means the accomplishment of properly recycling your old cellphone, rather than the guilt of letting it sit in a drawer.

Unconsumption means the thrill of finding a new use for something that you were about to throw away.

Unconsumption means the pleasure of using a service like Freecycle (or Craigslist, Goodwill, or Salvation Army) to find a new home for the functioning DVD player you just replaced, rather than throwing it in the garbage.

Unconsumption means enjoying the things you own to the fullest – not just at the moment of acquisition.

Unconsumption means the pleasure of using a pair of sneakers until they are truly worn out – as opposed to the nagging feeling of defeat when they simply go out of style.

Unconsumption means feeling good about the simple act of turning off the lights when you leave the room.

Unconsumption is not about the rejection of things, or the demonization of things. It’s not a bunch of rules.

Unconsumption is an idea, a set of behaviors, a way of thinking about consumption itself from a new perspective.

Unconsumption is free.

CONTRIBUTORS:

Founder & Editor: Rob Walker, journalist, Savannah, GA

Editorial & Community Manager: Molly Block, marketing and business development geek, Houston, TX

Brian W. Jones, designer & writer, Göteborg, Sweden

Kashvi Kumar, Environmental Studies and Economics major at New York University

Deirdre Nelson, ever threading artist, Glasgow, Scotland

Shanna Trenholm, writer. catalyst. force of nature. San Diego, CA

* * *

Alumnus & Unconsumption logo creator: Clifton Burt, graphic designer, Portland, OR

Further information about Unconsumption can be found here.

5:19 pm - Tue, May 31, 2011: 9 notes

Diane Gilleland x Mr. Cart: Reviving old T-shirts with fabric patches

We’re proud and excited to bring you the newest contribution to The Uncollection. (That’s Unconsumption’s do-it-yourself “ultimate lifestyle brand: all lifestyle, no products for sale” — any old item, object, thing, stuff, that gets a new life by way of anybody who wants to incorporate our logo into or onto it. You are encouraged to add your own stuff to The Uncollection, and post the results on our Facebook page.)

The second contributor to our artist series (following Tiffany Threadgould) is the fantastic Diane Gilleland: the Editor-in-Chief of CRAFT, she also publishes CraftyPod, a blog and podcast about making stuff. And as you’ll see, she’s pretty handy with the actual crafting, too.

Here she explains what she did, and how:

Old T-shirts seem to have a way of proliferating — most of us have a drawer (or back of the closet) full of them somewhere, and they show up at thrift stores regularly. So for my contribution to The Uncollection, I thought I’d make use of this ubiquitous raw material. I thought it might be fun to add contrasting fabric patches, making it clear that graphics are being deliberately covered up. And then I stenciled Mr. Cart over the patches.

Here’s one tee (above) before I started. I measured the screen printed area, and cut a big patch from another old shirt to cover it. I cut this patch about 1” larger on all sides than the graphic area.

To adhere the patch to a T-shirt, you can use one of two methods. For a small patch like the one above, on a different tee, I fused it to the shirt with fusible webbing. You can find this wonder-stuff in most fabric stores. Steam-a-Seam and Heat-n-Bond are good brand names to try. Just bust out your iron and follow the package directions to do the fusing.

Or, for a larger patch like the one I added to the orange shirt, you may want to sew it down. I just folded under ¾” on all four edges of the patch, pinned it to the shirt, and sewed around all four edges with my sewing machine.

Next, I printed Mr. Cart at the size I wanted him to appear on the shirt. I taped some freezer paper (shiny side down) to a cutting surface. and then taped the print-out on top of that. I carefully cut all the outlines with a craft knife.

(Hint: it’s easiest if you cut the central details out first, and then cut the outer lines. If you want your cart to appear in line form, then keep all the little interior shapes, like I’m doing here.)

Heat your iron and turn off the steam. Place your cut freezer paper, shiny side down again, on the T-shirt, placing the graphic where you want it. Iron the paper gently, and it will fuse to the T-shirt, creating a nice, precise stencil. Then fill the stencil in with some fabric paint.

When the paint is dry, peel away all parts of the stencil. Heat your iron again and iron the back of the painted design to heat-set the paint.

…And voila! we gave new life to an old tee without having to assume its marketing messages!

What an inspiring use of Mr. Cart! (Who, as we always disclose, may actually be Ms. Cart; we don’t know for certain.) Unconsumption thanks Diane profusely, and advises you to enjoy CRAFT and CraftyPod, and follow her on Twitter at @SisterDiane.