Category Archives: sustainability

Sew 76 – Creative reuse

A jumper-skirt is teamed with an upcycled jacket that has its hemline recast as a collar to become Sew it Again #76 of 365.

Creative resewing of existing clothing is one of several ways eco-conscious consumers can be part of the sustainable fashion movement which has strengthened after the Rana Plaza fire in Bangladesh raised awareness of the deathly high cost of cheap clothing choices.

If you want to rethink the way you dress, there are four options (summarised below) outlined by Dominica Lim in a Verily Magazine article “What kind of eco-fashionista are you?”

THE CREATIVE: Rally girlfriends for a clothing swap party or engage in fun DIY projects to usher in new style statements.

THE INVESTOR: Think quality over quantity and price per wear. Before you buy ask yourself, will I wear this more than 10 times? Will I be able to wear this next season? Why am I buying this? No matter how fast fashion is, a staple piece that makes you feel your best self is absolutely timeless. Continue reading →

Sew 72 – Upending banana drama

These black t-shirts are 10-years old and the screen-printing is as good as the day it was created for the Save the Aussie Banana awareness campaign I ran with the Australian industry.

Australia is the only Western country with a commercial banana industry and is relatively free of the world’s worst pests and diseases. It was on these grounds that Tully banana grower Len Collins led the industry campaign against Philippines banana imports.

We used creative ways to raise public awareness via a big banana giveaway at Sydney’s Royal Easter Show and a Cowboys’ rugby league home game in Townsville – see photo below right with a Cowboys’ fan, Benny Banana and Jane Milburn, taken by my friend Chrissy Maguire in 2004.

After an extended import risk analysis by Australian authorities, the quarantine bar was set high to prevent disease incursions (such as black sigatoka, moko, bunchy top, freckle) and imports have not proceeded on this basis.

That was ages ago and now I’ve moved on to an ecological health campaign of my own making, demonstrating upcycling and resewing existing natural fibre clothing for pleasure, reward and sustainability. Continue reading →

Sew 71 – Have creative courage

Today’s upcycle adds an extra row of buttons to create room in a double-breasted silk jacket and turns a cardigan into a skirt and scarf.

These garments may not be perfect couture but they’re wearable and workable. And as the quote from @Wisdomalive on Twitter said today: Imperfection is an essential ingredient in the pursuit of excellence.

This aligns with a New Scientist article (March 8) by Michael Bond about The Secrets of Success, which include adopting a growth mindset – the belief that abilities can be developed through dedication and practice and aren’t fixed by biology. Continue reading →

Sew 70 – Waistline issues

This dropped-waist dress was created by cropping the waistline from a zippered A-line skirt and sewing it to a reversed polo skirt sans collar.

We know charity op shops are bulging with perfectly good clothing. After pondering why so many quality garments are being moved on, I’ve come up with a theory. People are literally outgrowing them and need to upsize. Bingo.

There’s an obvious correlation between our bulging waistlines and the burgeoning mountain of waste clothing. Australia is ranked as one of the fattest nations in the developed world, with three in five people (over 60%) now overweight and that figure is growing all the time.

One of the reasons I sew is to adjust clothes to fit my changing shape. Most people don’t sew – and since clothing has become so cheap it is easy to just upsize by buying new and tossing out the too-tight old stuff.

In their book Plant Obesity How we’re eating ourselves and the planet to death, Garry Egger and Boyd Swinburn link obesity with consumerism and climate change. They suggest we can help ourselves by living a low-carbon lifestyle, changing our way of thinking about how we live as much as our actual behaviours. Continue reading →

Sew 69 – A Scrappy Shift

This Scrappy Shift has a story to tell about the pieces of pink and white garments resewn for a second life in another place and time from their original purpose.

Some people will look at this and hate it. I look at it and love its busyness, diversity, colour, texture, quirks and angles – all stitched up with authentic simplicity and care.

This concept started with a friend’s shift from which I cut a pattern. I did this by placing an old sheet on the floor, laying the dress on top and cutting around it with 1cm extra all round for seams. This will be my pattern for future similar garments.

I then rearranged the rest of the sheet so it was on the cross (the diagonal grain) and cut two fresh pieces with irregular hemline created by the shaped fitted-sheet elastic randomly cutting across the bottom. I left the elastic in place and it is now hidden by the pieces of dress which fall down over the top of it. Cutting on the cross helps the finished garment drape less squarely and stiffly. Gathering various pink garments from my storage spaces and a metre of pink bobbles, I proceeded to cut pieces using pinking shears and randomly arrange then pin them on the sheeting. Son Max and Steph, see photo, called in for brunch and shared some time in this process. Continue reading →

Sew 68 – Glowing with silk

This op-shop silk top was resewn for a better fit then teamed with home-made silk skirt, and a scarf to finish.

My excuse for having wardrobes of accumulated natural-fibre clothing is I’ve been rescuing it from op shops for a song. Older clothing is often better quality and more interesting than new garments, which are increasingly being made from synthetic fibres.

Statistics show that average apparel fibre consumption in 1992 was 7kg per person and that increased to 11kg each by 2010 – an 80% increase in less than two decades. During that time, most of the increase is in synthetic fibres made from petroleum with natural fibres consumption increasing only marginally.

Each year, we are each adding 11kg more clothing to the global stockpile – with much of the reject stuff heading to landfill. What does 11kg of clothing look like?

I’m giving a presentation later this month on this topic and bagging up old stuff a friend was tossing out as props so we can eyeball what an individual year of new clothing looks like for one person. Globally, we multiply those bags by 7.2 billion to get a year’s worth of clothing consumption. Continue reading →

Sew 67 – Dressed to frill

This was a long shift dress to which I added rows of salvaged silk and repositioned the hem as a collar.

On this International Women’s Day it’s troubling to read the statistics of women still living in difficult circumstances and disempowered, enslaved or subjugated.

Oxfam International says women perform 66% of the work, produce 50% of the food, but earn only 10% of the income & own 1% of the property.

The Women’s Agenda highlights these statistics along with the stunning Oscar speech of 12 Years a Slave actress Lupita Nyong’o in which she said: “it doesn’t escape me for a moment that so much joy in my life is due to so much pain in someone else’s”.

As I reuse existing clothing I’m valuing the hard work that has gone before and rejecting exploitation exposed by the Rana Plaza fire that has sparked a Fashion Revolution. Continue reading →

Sew 65 – Signature jumper-skirt

This quick upcycle was a too-busy knit top turned into a jumper-skirt teamed with op shop top and wool jumper.

It was fun to be at Parliament House yesterday networking with rural colleagues and parliamentarians including Premier Campbell Newman for the 2014 RIRDC Rural Women’s Award.

Congratulations to winner Lauren Hewitt from Brisbane and runner-up Rhonda Sorensen from Malanda. Lauren works for farm group AgForce Queensland and is interested in improving farm profitability – a message which resonates because without profitable farms, there is no food and fibre.

My lovely 2010 Queensland counterpart Sharyn Garrett travelled from Amby in south west Queensland and it was great to see her, pictured right with (me) Jane Milburn and Rod Kelly from Westpac Agribusiness a long-term sponsor of the award along with Fairfax Agricultural Media and the Queensland Government.

I was also inspired yesterday to have Brisbane Visual Arts Community president Lena Tisdall and Jola Szymczyk visit my studio to discuss an upcoming talk on upcycling and global textile consumption. Jola is president of Australian Textile Surface Design Association, Queensland and the driver behind Greater Springfield Creative Hub based on the recognised link between creativity and health. Continue reading →

Sew 64 – A little upsize

There’s nothing worse than a too-tight jacket, so create a little more space by adding extender ribbon loops near the top buttonhole and use a scarf to fasten and cover the space.

This jacket now fits my current shape and is suitably dressy for Parliament House and today’s announcement of the 2014 Queensland RIRDC Rural Women’s Award.

I’m proud to be part of the alumni for this Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation program, as 2010 Queensland runner-up, and enjoy opportunities to catch up with women and men doing great things in the sector.

Even though I live in the city, I feel connected to the bush because of my rural heritage, education and advocacy work. In fact we all have connection to rural because that is where our food and fibre comes from – and we need to be increasingly aware of that. Continue reading →

Sew 63 – Camouflage for stain

Two orange knit garments were melded into a dress to camouflage an unfortunate stain on an otherwise beautiful wool top.

When a hole appears, a button falls off, seam pops or stain appears – what do you do? Turn to expert, toss them out, or DIY? If you have simple home-sewing skills, you are empowered to apply them creatively to solve small defects in otherwise perfectly good clothing.

With my Sew it Again campaign this year I’m working my way through wardrobes full of natural-fibre clothing accumulated from various sources over time, demonstrating creative ways of upcycling and reviving them for a second life.

I’ve run a number of different campaigns in my time, and it was interesting to be described as an ‘avid sewer and sustainable fashion advocate’ by Laura Stead-Churchill in Bmag.com. Continue reading →