Category Archives: wellbeing

Sew 90 – Renovating your wardrobe

This casual linen suit made ages ago is refreshed by shortening the jacket and covering up the buttons. We renovate houses, why not our wardrobes? One way to do that is to sew it again.

Our clothes encapsulate our body. What we chose to wear is extremely personal – we want to look right, feel sharp, mirror trends and/or make a statement about who we are.

In the same way we may make informed food choices to nurture our health and wellbeing, we can make informed clothing choices which are good for ourselves and the planet.

Over-consumption of the wrong sorts of food is feeding obesity problems in most first-world countries – and that’s exacerbated by the many labour-saving devices we have on hand. Spending time growing a few herbs and cooking meals from scratch makes for a healthful, meaningful life.

By all accounts, the world is drowning in excess clothing and marketers are constantly pushing us to buy more new stuff through sales catalogues, inducements and prestige pedalling. Continue reading →

Sew 88 – Nature and knowledge

This dress is an old hemp top upcycled with a salvaged silk trim which matches the colour of frangipani flowers that fall from a tree on my local bush-walking track.

Gathering beautiful fibres and found stuff is second nature to me as an upcycler – and for this Sew it Again year I’m integrating these traditions with new knowledge and fresh ideas from a range of sources.

I’m grateful to yesterday have been able to spend time with Head of Fashion Kathleen Horton and Lecturer in Fashion Alice Payne at QUT Creative Industries and source their views on upcycling, fashion and the factors which influence the way we dress.

Kathleen spoke about how fashion is splintering in many different directions and 3D digital printing of clothing is not too far away.

Information about another new-age development came via my WA friend Lucinda Giblett who sent a link to the work of designer Suzanne Lee who is growing vegetable leather using kombucha fermentation techniques. See her amazing ‘grow your own clothes’ TED talk here. Continue reading →

Sew 86 – Valuing others’ work

Respecting time, effort and resources of others’ creations is part of today’s upcycle which includes the waistband of a knitted garment now featuring as a loose collar.

Thinking of others is key to the inspiring story told at the Rural Press Club by Danielle Crismani about her leadership journey during the 2011 Queensland floods when a simple act of baking muffins for volunteers sparked an outpouring of baked relief at this time of community crisis.

By giving to others Danielle has achieved many things, including being able to opening dispense her recipe for overcoming depression – which is show gratitude, sleep, be kind to yourself and help others. There were many great pearls of wisdom in Danielle’s speech, which you can get a taste of by reading ABC Landline Pip Courtney’s twitter feed. Continue reading →

Sew 85 – Upcycled history skirt

This history skirt is one of a series of three I made for the Green Heart Fair last year from six reject silk and linen garments, which I wear with an op shop navy wool top. Back home in Brisbane and excited today to be wearing this to the Rural Press Club lunch which is about the power of one person to change things and the power of cooking to bring communities and strangers together.

Baked Relief founder Danielle Crismani, @digellabakes on Twitter, is guest speaker talking about her amazing community leadership in 2011 and the recent #lovetothewest campaign. “When the 2011 floods hit the Lockyer Valley, Brisbane woman Danielle Crismani baked a batch of muffins for the volunteers she saw on her TV screen. Within days of a mention on Facebook, hundreds of people inspired by her act of kindness – were baking for flood hit communities. The accidently created charity ‘Baked Relief’ is still going with volunteers baking for Queensland’s drought hit farmers.” Continue reading →

Sew 84 – Moving along

Hand-stitching an embellishment to a plain neckline is an easy way to change the look of a silk shift dress and it doesn’t need to be permanent – you can change it again any time you want. Investing a little time adapting clothing that’s already in your wardrobe rather than spending time shopping for new stuff is one way you can be part of the Fashion Revolution which is raising awareness of where clothes come from.

April 24 is Fashion Revolution Day, a global movement in response to the Rana Plaza fire on that day last year which exposed the exploitative realities of cheap fast fashion and caused by rethink about ethical and sustainable ways of dressing. Stories like Toxic Clothes on The Project last night are bringing light to problems with some new denim jeans – giving pause for thought.

Fashion Revolution Day is encouraging us all to be curious, find out and do something about the way we engage with our clothes – in the same way we are now more engaged and interested in the food we eat, how it was produced and where it comes from. Continue reading →

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 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 →