Refashioners – my contribution

I hope you’ve been following the Refashioners over on makery.uk? It’s been so much fun to see all the different creations people have made out of their men’s shirts. Who knew men’s clothing held all that potential?

When originally invited by Portia to take part in refashioning a men’s shirt I planned to make a button down skirt. However, the shirt I got in the post was in no way big enough to cover my backside, so, I went with a top instead.

For more info on my refashioning process, check out my blog post on makery.uk here!Here is the shirt Portia sent to me, and below are more photo’s of the result!

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Linden details

After making my grey Moneta dress I had some grey fabric left over. It wasn’t much fabric, so I fiddled with the pattern layout for ages, before deciding to cut out the cuffs and neck band from a contrasting fabric. The leftovers from my tropical Linden came in handy… 

Copying RTW jeans!

When I made my Ginger jeans earlier this year, I felt that I head reached a major milestone when it came to making my own clothes. I’ve worn those jeans almost to death and it was so satisfying to be able to make something so complicated and essential to my wardrobe.

To challenge myself even further I decided to rip apart a an old pair of H&M  jeans that I thought fit really well  and turn them into a sewing pattern. Well, the bits of jeans ended up lying in a pile in my sewing room for a few months, before I plucked up the courage to do something with it. I was just dreading the time consuming process of creating the pattern and what I figured would be a crap result. Here’s how it went:

Funky oilcloth apron

First of all, huge thanks to everyone who commented and contributed tips to my last blog post on where to source eco fabric for sewing. Many of you have done a lot of thinking about this which is awesome. I’ve decided that rather than the list becoming another blog post disappearing into scroll-down oblivion, to make it a permanent page on my blog. In that way I can update it regularly and add new resources that are interesting and useful (e.g. other blog posts on the topic, vintage fabric shops etc). Once it’s updated I’ll let you guys know!

Now this blog post is for everyone but my mum. If you know her, don’t spill the beans ok?

She asked me to make her an oilcloth apron for her birthday coming up. At a trip to Stof og Stil in Copenhagen I found this REALLY cool patterned oilcloth that I thought would be perfect for her – bold patterns and bright colours are completely her thing. The pattern repeat was a bit odd though, a gorgeous and huge circular patten with about 30cm gaps in between. So what do I do?

Who makes our fabric? Sourcing organic fabric online

After the recent ‘Who made your clothes’ campaign, I’ve been thinking a lot about who the hell makes my fabric? I am a sewer who’s made a pledge to only make my own clothes as a way to avoid ‘fast fashion’ after all.  The clothing industry that make ‘fast fashion’ is of course linked very closely to the fabric industry. It’s a no-brainer, but I haven’t really seen a debate about this in the online sewing community (if I’ve missed something, let me know).

The documentary ‘The True Cost’ looks at not only the garment industry in countries like Bangladesh, but also at the incredibly toxic cotton industry in the US and the huge influence and power of GMO a-holes like Monsanto.

The documentary is absolutely nauseating and it’s made me even more resolute to try to have as a sustainable wardrobe as possible. This made me think about where I buy fabric, and how I can make sure that I buy fabric that’s produced in a sustainable, organic way and not harmful to the environment, or the people involved in the production process.

So I’ve done a LOT of googling, and made a list of online fabric companies that are either exclusively organic, or at least provide a selection of organic materials. I thought I’d share this list as a useful resource to all of you fellow sewers. The list is by no means exhaustive (and very Europe and North America-centric…), but it’s at least a good place to start.

If you know of any shops not included on this list – please write a comment below or email me so that we can expand the list! So here we go:

The perfect sewing soundtrack

Have been listening obsessively to Lianne La Havas for the past week. Stunning voice and a total boss woman power trip. If you’ve missed her, check out her albums ‘Blood’ and ‘Is your love big enough?’ on Spotify.

Also, I hope you didn’t miss Ute’s hip and crips shirt refash when Portia kicked off the Refashioners 2015 on her blog yesterday? Today Jenny from Cashmerette (a.k.a #cakewithcashmerette Guardian star :))  is wowing with her floral number. Gimme more!

A lazy Moneta dress

I was in desperate need of some basic stuff for my wardrobe so decided to add another Moneta to the collection.

The reason this dress is lazy is