When Margaret Kasper finds an old, ripped T-shirt at a thrift shop or yard sale, she doesn’t see it as trash; she sees her next sewing project.

Kasper created Mountain Girl Clothing in 2008 as a hobby that had the added benefit of allowing her to earn spending money in college. Since she graduated in May 2009, she has turned her hobby of creating unique clothing from other people’s junk into a full-time job.

Kasper has been selling her handmade clothing just as fast as she can sew it. In just a year and a half, she has sold more than 800 pieces and has been making enough money to pay the bills.

“It’s been great so far. I’ve been able to support myself.” Kasper said. “When I decided to focus on it full time and dive into it, what I got out of it was really surprising and inspirational. It’s work, in a sense, but it doesn’t feel like work to me. It’s a lot of fun. I will work from early in the morning until the wee hours of the night, because I just love it.”

Kasper has been sewing since she was 11 years old. She sees herself as part artist — even though her clothes use old material, they wind up looking modern and fashionable — and part throwback to times when sewing was done out of necessity.

“All through middle school and high school I would just take my clothes I didn’t feel like wearing and make them into something different. I didn’t see the need to go out and buy a whole bunch of new clothes when all I had to do was snip, cut, sew a line and I have a new shirt,” Kasper said.

She continued creating her own clothes while she was at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, where she got the idea to expand her passion into a business.

“Being in the city, there are a lot of thrift stores, and being in college, you don’t have a lot of money. I would go out to these thrift stores, and I started thinking wouldn’t it be amazing to take something that’s old and not really used and be able to take it apart, put it back together in a completely different form to be worn by someone and look modern and trendy,” she said.

Besides enjoying her work, one of the things Kasper said she likes best about Mountain Girl Clothing is that it is easy on the environment.

“I’m not making any demands. There’s a lot of pollution that goes into making clothes, with the dyes and the refuse that comes from the textile industry. So by not making a demand, and of course that would be just a small demand, I feel like that’s one less person who’s looking for new fabric when there’s already so much around us to be used. You just have to think outside the box,” she said.

Kasper admits the styling of her clothes isn’t for everyone, but she has realized there is a significant market for “green,” yet still fashionable clothing. Much of the clothing you find in stores today is bland and similar to everything else on the rack, she said.

“Some of the stuff I make is a little out there, but it can really be something beautiful and high quality,” she said.

Kasper sells most of her clothes online through a website that provides a place to sell handmade crafts. Her regular customers include thrift shops in California and Illinois, but she also sells her clothing at the Peterborough Farmers’ Market every Wednesday. Kasper also offers customers the service of customized clothing.

“Take an old wedding dress, for example,” she said. “Someone is getting remarried to the love of their life and they’d like to use the same wedding dress — but now it’s 30 years later. I’ve been asked things like that, to make it look more modern. It’s kind of scary to take someone’s treasured item, and they trust you to cut it up and make it something they can love again.”