Category Archives: sustainability

Sew 219 – Jumper-skirt for Ekka

The Rural Press Club breakfast is the opening event at the Ekka, Queensland’s annual show, and a great time to catch up with rural friends and associates from around the state.

Guest speaker this year was Jason Strong, CEO of Australian Agricultural Company – talking about beef of course – but I was seated with central Queensland cotton grower Charlie Wilson. As a former chair of Cotton Australia, Charlie has good insight into cotton production, how it sits in the textile world in relation to inputs (water and chemicals) required to grow the crop and the challenge from synthetic fibres. He runs a family enterprise producing about 4000 bales of cotton as well as organic beef and dryland cropping of wheat and chickpeas. Although he plans to grow organic wheat in future, he says it is not possible to grow fully organic cotton in Australia because of the insect pest problems. Continue reading →

Sew 217 – Shift thinking on textile waste

The funny thing about this Sew it Again project in which I set out to reduce my clothing stockpile is that I seem to be accumulating more! There is so much surplus clothing in the world, that people either give it away, donate to charities or dump it to reduce the burden it has become.

Because I see waste clothing as a resource, I’m spending this year coming up with ways individuals can reuse it and sharing them on this blog, at workshops and talks. Around the world, there are other thrifty, resource-savvy people reusing waste clothing too – just google upcycling or refashion. We are part of a DIY refashion revolution exploring more sustainable, mindful and resourceful ways of living.

When I reflect on progress to date, I’m excited that local government authorities are inviting me to demonstrate what can be done with old clothing – via the t-shirts reworked workshop last Sunday at Redcliffe City Council’s What’s Cooking in the Gardens event, and a similar activity planned for Brisbane City Council’s Green Heart Fair at Carindale on October 12. Continue reading →

Sew 216 – Reusing waste creatively

Clothing is third on the list of wasteful consumption after food and credit interest, according to The Australia Institute.

A TAI 2005 research paper says that while we ostensibly buy goods and services to meet needs, social and economic systems now depend on growing levels of consumer spending unconnected with any needs.

It says: “Consumer spending is everywhere praised as being ‘good for the economy’; indeed, in the long term, it is only consumer spending that keeps the economy growing, and economic growth is almost universally believed to be the most important contributor to national and personal well-being (Hamilton 2003). As a consequence, economic growth has become a dominant objective in itself, irrespective of the extent to which it contributes to improving social well-being.” Continue reading →

Sew 215 – Linking with like-mindeds

As I work my way through this Sew it Again year, I enjoy meeting people and starting a conversation about clothing – where it comes from, where it goes to, and what happens to it along the way.

There is significant community awareness of the disposable culture flowing from the cheap and seemingly endless supply. People are becoming more conscious of the negative environmental and social impacts of the clothing binge, in the same way they know about negative health impacts from over-consumption of cheap processed food, But doing something about it is another matter.

Items that are unique and locally handmade with heart are rare. They standout among the sameness of the mass-produced and are valued by conscious consumers. They’re doubly special if you take the time to learn the skills and make them yourself. Continue reading →

Sew 213 – Op shops are tops

My sister Joanne, right, and I were raised by a mother who made clothing for herself and for us, in the time before sweatshops and cheap fast fashion. As a child, I remember being told not to say anything if we saw our young neighbours wearing our cast-offs.

Clothing is still passed on through social and family networks, to maximise use of garments and the fabrics from which they were made. Thrifty values are ingrained, so Jo and I still share unworn clothing before it is donated to opportunity shops, turned into rags or dumped.

These day clothing swaps and swish parties are happening things and I am an avid supporter of op shops – both buying from and donating to.

Op shops operate with a lot of wonderful volunteer support, play an important role in helping those in need and keeping textiles out of landfill through reuse and recycling. Continue reading →

Sew 212 – Clothing is not fashion

I’ve learned so much from reading Kate Fletcher‘s Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys book – including an understanding about the difference between clothing and fashion.

Here’s a big slab of what Fletcher says about that: “Fashion and clothing are different concepts and entities. They contribute to human well-being both functionally and emotionally. Clothing is material production; fashion is symbolic production. Although their use and looks sometimes coincide, fashion and clothes connect with us in different ways. Fashion links us to time and space and deals with our emotional needs, manifesting us as social beings, as individuals. Fashion can be what is set in motion when a designer presents a new collection on a catwalk on Milan. But equally, fashion can be the moment when a teenager crops a pair of jeans, adds a badge to an old sweatshirt and paints their Converse pumps. Clothing, in contrast, is concerned chiefly with physical or functional needs, with sheltering, shielding and protecting. Not all clothes are fashion clothes and not all fashion finds expression in garment form. Yet where the fashion sector and the clothing industry come together (in fashion clothes) our emotional needs are made manifest as garments. This overlaying of emotional needs on physical goods fuels resource consumption, generates waste and promotes short-term thinking as we turn our gaze from one silhouette, hemline and colour palate to the next in search of the next new experience. It also leaves us dissatisfied and disempowered, as physical goods, no matter how many of them we consume, can never truly satisfy our psychological needs.” Continue reading →

Sew 211 – Use skills to renovate clothes

I’m up to day 211 of upcycling and renovating existing clothing to give them another chance at life through the 2014 Sew it Again project.

We don’t live in a perfect world so why expect our clothing to be so? Clothing requires maintenance and can be renovated. Sometimes we wash them more than we need to (Levis CEO doesn’t wash jeans) and often times we rush off to buy something new instead of checking and changing what we already have.

As an op shop queen, I buy very little new, am into DIY and use the library. But when I found Womankind magazine while browsing the newsagent, I saw something special.

The cover is symbolic, a beautiful butterfly collage of a woman’s face, the editorial by Antonia Case a compelling case for using time wisely to create a good life and the article about Julia Schor was the decider to add Womankind to my collection of affirming publications. Continue reading →

Sew 208 – Easy when you see how

Interesting to see a Vinnies op-shop scarf included in the fashion pages of our local newspaper The Courier-Mail yesterday. St Vincent de Paul was Just casually listed along with the other fashion suppliers featured in the photos.

Does this suggest op-shops are going mainstream? Advertising enables publishing and commerce makes the world go around, so can’t get too excited that op-shops and upcycled clothing have more than a niche future.

Unlike the established processes for recycling glass, metal and plastic, we don’t do much with textiles beyond donating them to op shops. That’s why I am spending this year on a counter-culture Sew it Again project to demonstrate other uses for reject clothing and fabrics – building a 365-page archive of options for reuse. Continue reading →

Sew 207 – See old jumper sew skirt

This was an ordinary old cotton jumper that Helen transformed into a skirt, scarf, toggle and headband at the Textile Beat jumper-to-skirt workshop – and Desirea modelled at the gorgeous Abbey of the Roses in Warwick, Queensland.

Cotton farmers are paid about $500/bale (which is 227kg) for raw cotton or about $2/kg for the cotton in a standard jumper which weighs less than 500 gms. A lot of water, energy and other inputs (insect control, defoliant) go into producing this natural fibre. After being grown on farms, the fibres then go through ginning, spinning, colouring, knitting to turn it into garments which we buy so easily and cheaply in clothing stores because they are made en mass. Billions and billions of such garments are produced every year to clothe the world. Continue reading →

Sew 203 – Where clothes come from

During the past decade there has been growing interest and awareness in where food comes from, how it is grown and what are its nutritional and sustainable values. We’re alive to fact that we are what we eat.

In a similar way, there now is growing interest in where clothes come from, who made them, what they are made of and whether they are ethical and sustainable – because we are what we wear.

Skin is our body’s largest organ, so the clothing we wrap it in influences feel, comfort and interactions by osmosis. Natural-fibre clothing free from contaminants and toxins must be best. The benefits of natural fibres are eloquently summarised by Wildfibres UK. Continue reading →