Tag Archives: clothes

The Refashioners 2016 Community Challenge

22 Thursday Sep 2016

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I was really excited when a friend sent me a link to the Refashioners 2016 Community Challenge being run by Makery. So much creativity, not to mention some fantastic prizes. Since recycling denim is my thing, I was quick to check out the details, and equally quick to decide to enter. At this point I must admit that I didn’t make this garment specifically for this challenge, it was one of my entries in the Australian Sewing Guild’s Castaway to Couture competition earlier this year.

Since I have done several denim recycling projects before I have a dedicated box full of discarded denim, both whole garments which I haven’t taken the scissors to yet, and bits left over from previous projects. For this challenge I decided to re-visit a theme I have used before, which entails many hours with a seam ripper. I find the most interesting bits of old denim are the bits which have faded, hems, seams, waistbands etc, anywhere the denim has been folded or creased. The fading creates beautiful patterns in the fabric, reminiscent of Japanese shibori dying.

The downside of all this beauty is that it only happens where the denim has been folded. Whilst the rest of the jeans are attractive, the best bits to me are generally small, so it means lots of unpicking to harvest them, and then lots of patching together to make a new garment. I think it’s worth it though, what do you think?

I seem to have been so caught up in the creative process for this challenge that I didn’t taken many photos of the work in progress. There is a pile of bits left over –

img_4787
Still raw materials for a few more projects here!

Then a few details of the finished garment –


The lining, which you can just see, and which saved me from having to finish all the seams, was a sundress from the op shop.

And finally me modelling it.
j-livingstone-denim-vest

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Slow Clothing

04 Thursday Feb 2016

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I don’t ‘do’ Facebook, but I do occasionally look at others’ pages, and something on the Australian Sewing Guild’s page caught my eye recently. It was called ‘Slow Clothing – 40 garments in 40 days’. Wow, I thought, if I made 40 garments in 40 days I wouldn’t call that slow! At my recent rate of progress 40 garments in 4 years would be more likely.

Of course, all was not what it seemed. The Slow Clothing Project is an initiative by a Queensland sewer (or maker, to use her term) designed to get people to think about where there clothes come from, who made them, and whether they really need yet another pair of jeans. It’s the antithesis of fast fashion, the current cult of buying the latest look, having a whole new wardrobe every season, a new dress for every party, and then just discarding stuff when it’s only been worn once or twice, or maybe even not ever.

The 40 garments will be made by 40 different people, a diverse batch of makers scattered around Australia. Using either cast off clothing, or fabric from their own stashes, they will refashion, recycle, upcycle, reclaim or rework the fabric into new garments. The intention is to demonstrate that even though something isn’t brand new, it can be a useful and stylish garment which can have a new life.

Apparently Australia exports 70 million kilograms of cast off clothing to the third world each year, and presumably other countries are on a par with that. Only 20% of the clothing in op shops actually finds a new home, so even if you give your unwanted clothes to the op shop you aren’t really helping the situation much. Not buying so many new clothes would be far better, and save you money!

I started shopping in op shops some time ago when money was short, and now I still do it, because I can find plenty of things to wear without contributing to the wasteful industry that is high street fashion. Some things I buy to wear just as they are, others get re-fashioned. I’ve recently been shopping for some garments to use for the Castaway to Couture competition, but even that gives me pause. I wanted about 5 garments to use to make my one entry, and I do feel uncomfortable about destroying 5 perfectly good pieces of clothing which somebody else could have bought and worn as they were, whereas I will only end up with one garment. With that in mind I limited myself to shopping for the items which were half price, since I am pretty sure that these are the ones which are destined to go to landfill next week, or shortly anyway. I’m quite happy with what I’ve got, now to start creating!

Illustrating a murder

09 Tuesday Dec 2014

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Early last year I took a course called Introduction to Fashion Design, or something like that, at Central TAFE in Perth. I had been going to do Fashion Illustration, but there weren’t enough enrolments for that class to run.

So I ended up doing fashion design. Only a short course, one evening a week for 8 weeks I think, but it was very interesting. It was intended as an introductory course for people who actually want to become fashion designers, and covered things like branding, trends in colour and design, and how to present your collection on a story board, which is where the drawing came in.

I find it very difficult to draw realistically, but in fact for fashion illustration that doesn’t really matter, many of the best illustrators have a very representational style, if that’s the word I want. A few lines and splodges, and they can convey enough about a garment that you can picture it in your head. Like this for example. Each student developed their own style, and they were very varied. In line with my very down to earth character, mine was pretty simple and straightforward. I also had a problem with the conventional figure that fashion drawings are based on, you know the skinny one with the extra long legs. Real women don’t look like that for heaven’s sake! I did download some templates from Fashionary, but I ended up not using them and drawing my figures in more realistic proportions. In fact I used photos out of a magazine to base them on, so I know they look more like real women.

I have to admit though, that they do look a bit dumpy, but I’m telling myself that’s because we are all so conditioned to seeing figures with endless legs.

Also in the course, we designed our own logo, having first come up with a brand name. I thought of mine, A Murder of Crows, because one morning when I was leaving home to go to work there was a murder of crows in the front paddock. I afterwards thought of the connection that since I was designing a collection for ‘mature’ women, these clothes might also help them to forget (murder) their crows’ feet. A tenuous connection I admit.

The final part of the course was to put our drawings together on one or more story boards. I have photographed mine, but I took the photos really early one morning, outside, and although it was what I would call daylight, I think it really wasn’t. The photos all have a blue tinge to them, which I can only assume is due to the quality of the early morning light. In some circumstances it could be lovely, but it wasn’t what I was looking for here. I have tried to fix it, but with very limited success, I will have to take the photos again sometime. Here they are in the meantime:

Fashion illustration story board

Fashion illustration story board

Fashion ilustration - flat drawings

Fashion illustration – flat drawings

I found the flat drawings much easier to do than the people wearing the clothes, or even the clothes on people. Probably because I know how clothes are put together, and also because they are two dimensional. All in all, it was an interesting and worthwhile course, I think not least because I was giving myself permission to just play around with drawing.

Gorgeous vintage and retro clothes patterns

22 Tuesday Nov 2011

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I got an email this morning from a company I bought some sewing patterns from a while back. Decades of Style pattern company have put photos of many of their patterns made up on their site, and the results are gorgeous. Not all of the patterns are there, but a good number of them, beautifully made, and with such authentic looking fabrics.

I bought some of their patterns months ago, mostly because I saw a blouse reviewed in Threads magazine, and when I visited the site the postage was the same price for up to 5 patterns. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t made them up yet, but seeing these photos has made me determined to bump them up the ‘to do’ list a little! That’s after I’ve finished a quilt for my Dad’s 85th birthday (in 2 weeks) and a dress for a Christmas function for my daughter, also in 2 weeks. Both are fortunately fairly simple projects.

Two of the patterns I bought from Decades of Style were blouses, the 1940s Girl Friday blouse, and the 1950s Collar Confection blouse. Both would be good to have made for the summer, I will make myself an appointment to go through the stash and see what fabric I have to use. Whilst the examples on the website are made of vintage inspired fabrics, I think they would translate quite well into contemporary fabrics if well chosen. Lightweight linen in a plain colour or small print would do fine, or a softer rayon type print. I am pretty sure I have something suitable somewhere.

Another project I’ve been giving some thought to lately is the re-organisation of my sewing space. Actually I don’t think the word re-organisation is valid, since that implies an existing level of organisation, which I can’t honestly say there is. I have a space, not huge but I think adequate, but it needs cleaning, tidying, and lots more storage. Not only that, but it needs to be organised so that I can find what I need, and don’t end up going out to buy more of something just because I can’t find what I already have. I can’t wait to go through all the boxes which are hiding in the garage and sort them out and create some kind of reference for what is in them. Most of the stash will have to stay in the garage since there isn’t room for it in the house, but it would be really good to know what was out there and where it was. A database of some sort is required I think, although I have thought of just taking photos of the content of each box and having them on my computer for browsing when I want something.

I’m also working on how to set up a cutting out surface. The space I have doesn’t really lend itself to a permanent cutting out space, which really needs to be at least 1.5 metres square, and preferably more, with room to walk around all four sides. I’m trying to come up with a project for fold-away cutting out space, but not too hard to put away so that I don’t bother to do it. My current thought is a couple of small chests of drawers, on castors so they can be moved, and with flaps hanging down each side which can be raised. Two chests together, and the flaps, I think can be made to give me a surface about 1.2 metres by 1.8 metres, and still be manoeuvrable in the room, which is only about 2.4 metres wide, although quite long.

Something similar to this, but I’ll probably try to make it myself, or at least put a top onto a purchased chest of drawers. That’s after the kitchen, and the tool cabinet in the garage which isn’t finished yet! And a few other things!

This week’s photos are what in England we used to call an Easter cactus, because it flowered about Easter. Here in Australia it flowers in spring, but that’s nowhere near Easter. I’ve Googled it, and I think it is properly called Hatiora gaertneri, the name being nowhere near as pretty as the flower, as usual. It is really spectacular this year, although I should have moved it into the sunshine before taking the pictures, it would have looked even better.

Easter cactus

Hatoria gaertneri, I think

Easter cactus 2

Hatoria gaertneri, I think

Hatoria gaertneri, I think

Op-shop couture

06 Thursday Oct 2011

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I started looking for reconstructed and upcycled clothing on the net, and never dreamed how many hits I’d get. So many people are recycling clothing into all sorts of new fashions, and most of them are way more innovative than I would be. Try Googling reconstructed clothing, or recycled clothing, and you will find all sorts of inspiration. There are things to buy from other people, and ideas for things to make yourself.

I wanted a new outfit to wear to the editing workshop, and decided to create one myself out of op shop clothing. I’ve shopped op shops for years, first out of necessity when money was very tight, and more recently from not wanting to be a conspicuous consumer. It doesn’t hurt that it can still be way cheaper!

I went op shopping, and challenged myself to find what I needed in just one shop. Eventually I came away with one black top, one patterned, and one plain which picks up the colours of the pattern. I feel I ought to call the colour apricot, or salmon, but really I guess it’s orange! These are the tops.

The black one is going to be the base, I’m able to get into it but it’s a little tight, so I plan to cut it apart, and use the other two tops as decorative ways to put it back together again. Also I’ll lower the neck a bit, so I can wear another plain top underneath it, with sleeves for warmth. I really like some of the upmarket fashion labels I’ve seen in stores, with asymmetric clothes, and each garment having three or four different fabrics in it. Like these at TS14Plus clothes, and these Koos van den Akker designs from the Vogue pattern catalogue. I also did an image search on Google for Koos van den Akker, and came up with lots of ideas, although the flamboyance quotient of most of them is too high for me. Browsing through the images led me to several blogs of other admirers of his work, and eventually to the book, Couture Collage, which I am teetering on the brink of buying.

I’m hoping to end up with something inspired by these images, without the price tag. My base garments cost me $11.50 altogether.

I started by cutting down the front of the black top, on a diagonal line. Then I cut a strip of the pattern fabric to finish the raw edge at the neck. I cut pieces of both fabrics and pieced them together to fill the gap between the two edges of the black top. Next step was to try it on, and I found that I had cut a little too far, and the V of the neckline was a bit low. I needed to construct something to put in to fill the space.

As often happens, inspiration came from nowhere in particular, or more accurately from one of my quilting books which was lying on the table. I decided to make a small patchwork square to stitch over the gap. I made a kind of uneven log cabin block, starting with a triangle instead of a square, but cut the finished block to a square, so it is completely asymmetrical. The finished square was a bit unruly in terms of having nice straight edges and corners, so I stitched it right sides together with a scrap of black lining, then turned it right side out. I think the technique is called ‘bagging out’ in the trade.

This little exercise highlighted how much easier it would be to do this kind of garment construction with a dress form. I’ve never had one, and never really felt the need, but when you are making the garment up as you go along I think it would be really useful to have something to put it on so you could see how it was shaping up, literally. I shall have to look out for a second hand one, as they are pretty expensive new. I know there are ways of making your own custom fit, but I don’t feel like investing the time at the moment, and mostly I’m not looking for a perfect fit in these garments.

Having fixed up the neckline I had only to stitch the lower part of the orange top around to the lining of the base black top. The orange top already had a nice lettuce edge on it, and because it was a wrap style with two layers at the front there was enough of the edge to go all the way around the hem of the black top. A bit of finishing off, and done, albeit at 7.30 on the morning of the workshop!

I was pleased with it. When I came home, however, the blonde dog was so pleased to see me that she jumped up and caught one of her claws in the slightly lacy black fabric, and made a hole in it. Next time I wear the top it will have either a contrast patch, or possibly a pocket added to it! It’s also occurred to me that maybe I should create some printed or woven labels to sew into my own constructions – another side project. If I’m going to keep posting pictures I need to make an effort to take better ones too.

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Recycled reconstructed upcycled clothes Koos van den Akker Vogue TS 14 plus op shop design asymmetrical quilting