Linda Öhrn-McDaniel makes women's clothing out of vinyl records, newspapers and plastic bags.

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When it comes to thinking green, Linda Öhrn-McDaniel has an edge over most folks. The Tallmadge (U.S.) resident has made women's clothing out of vinyl records, newspapers, the plastic bags in cereal boxes, even bicycle inner tubes.

So maybe it's no surprise when she turned to the most humble of household castoffs for her newest creation.

Öhrn-McDaniel, an assistant professor of fashion design at Kent State University, stitched together used dryer sheets and plastic "sequins" to make a filmy, full-length ballgown with cap sleeves.

The design received the award for the best sustainable design by faculty at the annual meeting of the International Textile and Apparel Association. The award was sponsored by Educators for a Socially Responsible Apparel Business.

"I feel strongly about sustainable design," Öhrn-McDaniel said. "It is difficult not to be aware of the need to save and use our resources as effectively as we can."

Öhrn-McDaniel began experimenting with recycled materials while in college in her native Sweden.

Her first effort -- a bolero jacket made of newspapers collected from the Stockholm subway -- won her first place in a recycle competition and earned her a trip to New York City.

"That's when I got hooked with playing with strange materials," she said.

By the time she earned a master's in fine art at the University of North Texas, she was adept at turning rectangular Swedish milkboxes into purses, cereal bags into raincoats, softened vinyl records and window blinds into bras and a patchwork of inner tubes into a "biker" jacket that resembles leather at first glance.

Then her attention turned to the dryer sheets she so carelessly threw away.

"We don't use dryer sheets in Sweden and I was really amazed by them when I came here," she said. "I realized one day that they were like fabric."

So she layered used, pressed dryer sheets five or six deep onto a dress form. She dyed some sheets red and similar colors fading to white and positioned them at the hem.

Then she stitched the sheets together with transparent thread and topped the bodice with "sequins" punched from plastic pop bottles and sewn to the fabric.

The dress looks like it might have been pulled off the rack at a high-end store.

"I think it's important that it's not too strange," she said. "It's made to function."

Now she's thinking of her next project . . . possibly VHS tape or microfilm, she suggests.