Tag Archives: Australian Textile Artists and Surface Designers Association

Sew 177 – History in the making

Sew 177 by BevHere’s the lovely and productive Bev in the History Skirt she made at our Biloela REfashion workshop which is still delivering dividends, including #upcycle number 177 of 365 in the Sew it Again year.

Although I have a few more days left to enjoy in Kuala Lumpur, I’m already planning for my next workshop Creative Chop and Change on July 12 which is being hosted by the Queensland branch of the Australian Textile Artists and Surface Designers Association – you can book here if you are interested in being mindfully creative with rejects from your wardrobe. Continue reading

Sew 96 – Creative inspiration

upcycled silk history skirtIt is affirming to be around people who value your work, as it was for me yesterday meeting many wonderful women of threads at the Australian Textile Artists and Surface Designers Association Queensland social day.

Upcycling existing clothing is not new but many have lost the skills and confidence it requires or are not prepared to spend time and effort in doing so. We all have different priorities and are at different stages of life, but textile artists, designers and quilters, get what I’m about.

A common first-world problem is wardrobes bulging with clothing – we often keep stuff we bought in previous years and (on average) we each go on to buy another 11kg of clothing every year, according to FAO fabric apparel statistics. Multiply that by 7 billion people in the world and you begin to appreciate the impact clothing habits have on global resource use and ecological health. Most of the rejects end up as landfill.

Av consumption is 11kg of apparel fibre per person per yearTo demonstrate what 11kgs of clothing looks like, I boxed up some cast-offs (thanks Sally) photographed right.  To show fibre types, the synthetics nearly fill a 50-litre storage box, the cotton about half a box and the wool, linen and cellulose fibres are about one garment each.

In the front of this photo, there’s a measuring stick distilling the FAO figures from which I’ve calculated that on average, each person in the world is each year consuming 6.6kg synthetic, 3.74kg cotton,  400g cellulose fibres (eg viscose), 200g of wool and 150g flax/linen. In reality, the world is drowning in clothing. You almost can’t give it away except to third-world countries where most first-world cast-offs end up, leaving skill-displacement and disposal problems in their wake. Continue reading

Sew 95 – Three-shirt shift dress

Three-shirt shift upcycled by Jane MilburnYou can go out without breakfast or a car – but you can’t go out without clothes. It is the story of those clothes that is the focus of my Sew it Again campaign to inspire resewing existing clothing for a second life.

I’ve been asked to talk about my work at the Brisbane Visual Arts Community hub by the Australian Textile Artists and Surface Designers Association in Queensland today and I’m taking along my model Mabel in Sew 95, which is three shirts reworked as a shift dress.

All the materials I use are found, mostly from op shops and always natural fibres. I love linen, wool, silk, cotton in that order.  Continue reading