Category Archives: sustainability

Sew 52 – History Skirt from jumpers

This history skirt is refashioned from pieces of eight wool jumpers, with another jumper as waistband and hem.

Being winter in the northern hemisphere, I’m doing some woolly upcycles since there’s growing interest in sewitagain.com from United Kingdom, Italy and United States.

Nothing is ever entirely original in this world it just evolves from something or somewhere. In his book Think! Before It’s Too Late, Edward De Bono says the human brain is designed to set up routine patterns and to use and follow these patterns.

He says all valuable creative ideas will be logical in hindsight. Creativity is not a mysterious gift or special talent – it is the behaviour of a self-organising information system that makes asymmetric patterns (the brain). Continue reading →

Sew 51 – Jeans to rara skirt

Linen jeans becomes rara skirt by chopping below zip, extending skirt and adding frill made from off-cuts.

Reusing and resewing from existing clothing is an easy way to upgrade/revive/extend your wardrobe and I’m on a mission to do that for better or worse for 365 days this year.

Why? One reason is the ecological impacts of constant consumption. Society’s endless chase of new clothing consumes resources at the production end (water, energy, nutrients and/or petroleum) and results in pollution at the disposal end (dumps, leaching and/or methane). Continue reading →

Sew 50 – Chopping off hemlines

A long bias-cut skirt is updated by cropping to knee-length then worn as is, or with hem-off-cut recast as collar or wrap.

Wikipedia defines fashion as a general term for a popular style or practice, and often refers to the newest creations of textile designers. As fashion trends emerge they’re unique and stunning – that’s the nature of fashion. But in time they tend to look and feel dated – like a planned obsolescence.

That’s where upcycling comes in. By resewing existing garments, you can recreate them for a second life using simple home-sewing techniques as I’m demonstrating with my 365 day Sew it Again upcycling campaign.

Upcycling is a greener way of recycling – finding a new purpose for unwanted stuff instead of moving it on. This UK Upcycling website says “upcycling is all about taking disposable things and creating something useful from them. Usually the only energy being used is your own and it can save you money too. Continue reading →

Sew 49 – Renovation by resewing

Two so-so garments of matching colours merge to be a brighter whole, with silk top sliced and diced to embellish linen dress.

This Sew it Again task I’ve set myself is a labour-of-love resewing a garment a day during 2014 to demonstrate a different way of dressing and I find inspiration everywhere.

“One of the best skills a girl can learn is to sew.” As I read these words last night, my heart sang.

Social activist and blogger Mary Dickinson said this in U on Sunday’s Inside my Wardrobe column: “I have been sewing since I was 10 so now I can buy something, if necessary, that is too big and take it in or chop the sleeves off and change it. I think one of the best skills a girl can learn is to sew.” Continue reading →

Sew 48 – Have crush on linen

This linen bias-cut skirt turned dress with addition of a bodice made from scraps sewn to an old piece of sheeting.

If you’ve been following Sew it Again, you know I’m on a 365-day journey devising and sharing ways we can take unworn clothes from our wardrobe and resew them for a second life.

Yesterday I attended the Meet and Greet at International House college at The University Of Queensland in my capacity as a director/honorary secretary on the Board of Management and spent time with the fabulous 2014 student leaders.

I was wearing Sew 47 and thrilled by their interest, quick understanding and excitement about the concept of resewing and reusing existing clothing – because as uni students they need to be thrifty and resourceful in the way they dress. Continue reading →

Sew 47 – Refashion your own

I refashioned this op shop shirtmaker by removing sleeves and collar, turning back to front and draping a scarf at neckline.

Another day, another great read – this time Eco chic: The savvy shoppers guide to ethical fashion by Matilda Lee, who in 2007 when it was published in the United Kingdom was editor of the Green Pages of the Ecologist magazine.

Naturally Lee does a fantastic job of canvassing all the issues, and I loved the way she introduced the book with a quote from Coco Chanel: “Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.”

There is so much quality information in Lee’s book about the science behind fibres, fabrics and fashion and the stories behind the clothes we wear. Books like this get me thinking about where I fit in the scheme of things, on my 365-day mission to reposition home-sewing as a life skill akin to home-cooking. Continue reading →

Sew 46 – One from the gestational file

This orange and black stripped outfit once was a woollen jumper which I’ve turned into a jumper-skirt with sleeves as a neck scarf, teamed with a wool top.

It’s from my files because I was distracted at the Rural Press Club, catching up with journo mates such as Jane Paterson, Steve Gray, Gordon Collie, Teena Girdis, Neroli Roocke and meeting new ones Sue Neales from The Australian and Cassandra Hough from ABC Toowoomba, respectively runner-up and winner of the Excellence in Rural Reporting awards.

The link between the rural sector and what I’m doing here with Sew it Again is not immediately obvious until you think about where your clothes come from. They’re either made from natural farmed resources (wool, cotton, flax, hemp, alpaca etc) or man-made from petroleum, oil or gas.

After the Rural Press Club I went to Avid Reader bookshop in West End to pick up my newly-arrived copy of The Sustainable Fashion Handbook by Sandy Black (I just had to have my own copy), bumped into my dear friend Kay Pearse who is off to the US tomorrow, and then it was time to pick up Darcy from a city meeting and on to the airport to pick up son Max.

A fun day but no time at home feeding the baby – model Mabel needed a change of clothes! Continue reading →

Sew 45 – Love for natural resources

Business attire is dress code for today’s Rural Press Club lunch at Tattersalls so I’m wearing this black silk top (found in op shop as is, never worn) teamed with silk-embellished linen skirt.

Speaking today is National Farmers’ Federation president Brent Finlay about the future for family farming in Australia, in what is the UN’s International Year of Family Farming 2014.

About 99 percent of Australian farms are family-owned and operated, but the challenges involved in growing food and fibre for the world include drought, low profitability, rising debt and a dwindling rural workforce.

In addition to being NFF president, Brent is a wool producer from the Traprock region of southern Queensland whom I met 15 years ago at a Wear Wool Wednesday fashion parade in the Red Chamber at Queensland Parliament House when I was working for then Minister for Primary Industries Henry Palaszczuk. Continue reading →

Sew 43 – Black & white rerun

Clothing can be endlessly upcycled until it wears out. This skirt is on its third life. It began as a dress (1) from op shop, I removed top to make a skirt (2), which I’ve now re-upcycled (3).

For relaxation when I worked 9-5+ as a communications manager, I’d visit op shops on Saturdays gathering odds and sods to create ‘new’ office outfits – such as this one.

There’s an art to successful op shopping. In her book DIY Fashionista, Geneva Vanderzeil, includes a five-point plan to get the most out of secondhand shops to which I entirely concur:

Go often – things are coming and going all the time, so if you don’t scoop the great stuff someone else is going to
Dig deep – the best finds are often at the bottom of the pile
Be imaginative – think outside the box – tops for bottoms, outerwear made into daywear, evening to day – the options are limitless, you just need to create them in your mind
Location, location, location – the best jumbles are often found in places where a proportion of the population have a reasonable income leading to better quality cast-offs
Get to know the staff – often people in charity shops are volunteers – become friends with them and they may put things away for you Continue reading →

Sew 42 – Go Green for greater good

Resewing adventures are a way of creating and sharing ideas to magic discarded clothing into something else – long white cotton skirt turns muumuu by cutting armholes.

Our fashion habits and mores have led the world to the point where mountains of perfectly good clothing are being shipped around the world or sent to landfill.

This year I’m investing time, energy, creativity and skills to devise ways to refashion 365 outfits from old stuff in my wardrobes (yes, that’s plural) with the Sew it Again project.

The project is an initiative of the creative business/social enterprise Textile Beat, which made a splash last year at Brisbane’s Green Heart Fair. Notification came yesterday that the next Green Heart Fair run by Brisbane City Council as part of our city’s sustainability agenda is on June 1 and I’m looking forward to that.

Meanwhile, it’s Go Green Week in the United Kingdom (Feb 10 – 16) and I enjoyed these comments from University of the Arts London’s new Chair of Art in the Environment Lucy Orta. Continue reading →