Upcycling: Sustainable April Highlights / Do you have any great upcycling ideas right now?

Dear users, dear authors,
How’s your upcycling going these days? Do you have any great new ideas ?

@Authors,
you can share up to 2–3 thematically relevant patterns here in this discussion thread. 

Upcycling is THE new trend of the future, and it’s already here. Everywhere, people are thinking about how to make something old new again and how to breathe new life into old things. I’m a big fan of that and throw very little away. You can still make something beautiful out of so many things. I’ll show you 3 examples. I hope you enjoy looking at them and making them yourself. And I’m looking forward to your ideas.

Warm regards from Ina

Example 1: Pillow for the doll bed

The special thing about these pillows is that they can be crocheted beautifully from scraps and that their filling is made from packaging film (bubble wrap, crinkly film). It works really well, keeps its shape, and is actually a waste product.



Example 2: Seat cushion

The crocheted seat cushion is ideal for colorful leftover yarn. The special thing about it is that the cushion itself is made of foam that I cut out of an old mattress. The colorful crocheted cover wraps around the cut-out circle. By the way, it’s a free pattern.



Example 3: Doorstop “Sandbag”

Yes, you probably know this one. It’s extremely practical and weighs 4.5 kg. The special thing about it is its filling. It’s made from a cotton bag (shopping bag) filled with small pebbles. A very inexpensive and sturdy filling.

Ina, using bubble wrap for padding is a great idea! I hadn’t even thought of that yet.

My husband’s headphones—the foam ones—broke. And now he wants me to make him some out of wool, since they’re more comfortable on the ears. That’s how I came up with the idea for these headphone cushions, and I crocheted some for myself right away. All you need is a few small scraps, and they’re done in no time. So why buy plastic when you can make them so cheaply—and much more beautifully—out of cotton or wool?

Go to the crochet pattern

Dear Monika, that’s a great idea! A small contribution to combating the flood of plastic.

Today I was happy to see that a supermarket—from which we receive weekly flyers—has switched to printing its flyers in A5 format. All the others still use A4 format. Paper is in short supply, and this move lets the company save 50% on costs. Hopefully, the other stores will follow suit.

Best regards, Ina