Thank you! We are at the pointy end of another year, and on a countdown of 365 days of the #sewitagain journey of discovery, learning, restyling existing clothing and daily posting.
No one achieves anything worthwhile on their own and I am deeply grateful to the many people who have helped me along the way.
Today, I thank the 7000+ people from around the world who have engaged with this eco-social project to shift thinking about how we choose and reuse clothing and textiles. My model includes empowering individuals to reimagine and recreate their own wardrobe collection by resewing at home.
As these Google Analytics screen captures show (right and below), two-thirds of those engaging with the project are in Australia – and the others involved mainly being in the United States, followed by the United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil and Germany. And people in my birth-country of New Zealand are also very engaged considering the relatively small population!
Through the course of the year I’ve recognised that the upcycling focus with which I started out has evolved into a broader agenda of becoming conscious about our clothing in the same way we are now conscious of our food.
The broader agenda is #dresswithconscience:
- Slow – be calm, buy less, care more
- Unique – cultivate individual style
- Natural – choose fibres from nature
- Story – treasure clothes with local stories
- Relove – enjoy op-shop finds and cast-offs
- Repair – mend, patch, stitch-in-time
- Restyle – resew clothes to suit yourself
- Remake – create new life from old stuff
- Reduce – simplify, value less as more
- Recycle – donate, rag or compost
I’ve summarised these in a table on the With Conscience tab over at the Textile Beat website.
Meanwhile, Sew 354 is a quick upcycle of an opshop found silk bias-cut skirt and top that I wasn’t wearing in its current form.
When my young Canberra friend Eske visited the studio while in Brisbane for a short break, I suggested she try on the skirt as a strapless dress and it fitted perfectly.
We felt it might benefit from a halter strap – which was achieved by cutting the straps off the top, turning each inside out, sewing the cut end together, turning right side out and then stitching in place at the front.
Quick, easy and effective – and the silk fabric swishes so beautifully. Eske looks so beautiful in it too!
