Happy Newvember!

I am really excited to be involved with so many resourceful events and initiatives this month helping us to make the most of what we already have, be less wasteful and prolong or breathe new life into our belongings (and mindsets!) I hope you can join Fabrications at one of the following events! 

Hackney Fixers proudly presents 'The BIG Fix' 

Hackney's first festival of fixing! At St Mark's Church, Dalston, Saturday 21st November, 11am - 4pm

There is an impressive line up of experienced fixers to help you and teach you how to repair all kinds of items: electrical goods, electronics, clothing, chairs, bikes and more! Start getting ready with your stuff! 

Fabrications: Bring along an item of clothing to refresh. Learn patching, darning, sewing and alterations.

The Restart Project: Their fixers work with you to repair your gardgets (including mobile phones, laptops, printers, kitchen appliances and more!)

Hackney Bike Workshop: Fix your bicycle. Safety check, tyre check & pump up. Brake & gear adjustment & lubrication.

The School of Stuff: Chair repair surgery. Get sdvice and learn techniques for fixing your chair.

Traid: Protect your winter wardrobe, make a natural origami moth deterrent 

Eco Active: Make useful wallets, bags & beads from recycled materials.

Sugru: Demos and ideas on ways to use this amazing 'mouldable glue' or '21st Century duck tape!' which has become a globable fixing phenomenum - manufactured in Hackney!

Sustainable Hackney and Hackney Council's recycling team will also be on hand to provide information on recycling, waste prevention and re use.

 

 The Upcycling Academy is back! This time we will be at the Christmas Bust 'Craftacular' 

at York Hall, Bethnal Green, Sunday 22nd November, 11am - 5pm

'Craftacular' is one of London's largest and finest indie maker events. 'The Upcycling Academy' is an educational model created by Barley Massey (Fabrications) in conjunction with Traid, War on Want and The Craftivist Collectrive. Our aim is to start conversations and feel inspired to adjust our actions through hands on learning into textile waste, creative upcycling and better fashion industry practises.
 

Create a sweater bobble hat with Traid – 12-2pm – £5 – book here
Customise a Christmas jumper with Fabrications – 2-4pm – FREE* (bring your own jumper or Traid will have some to prchase before the workshop)
Fuse activism with craft and write a secret scroll with Craftivist Collective – 3- 5pm – FREE

Up next is TRAID's  #SecondHandFirst week which celebrates the power of second-hand to change the world by keeping the resources we already have in use for longer. It was launched by TRAID in 2014 and their key aim is to increase the number of people committing to wearing and sourcing more of their clothes (and other resources) second-hand, rather than new. The week will be packed full of events and actions, both in the UK and across the globe, to connect you to the huge environmental and social benefits of second-hand. Join Fabrications for our special #SecondHandFirst 'Darn it! Patch it! PARTY  at Fabrications,  Thursday 26th November, 6.30 - 9pm

Want to 'Refresh your Wardrobe' and unlock it's value? This is a regular class at Fabrications, because we love to pass on clothing care & repair techniques and inspiration all year round! Check out our CALENDAR for up and coming workshops and events! 

Tips & Tricks on hosting your very own 'Fashion Hackathon'

On Saturday 25^th April I was fortunate to be involved alongside ‘Love your Clothes’ at  Clotho’s first ‘Fashion Hackathon’. Although I’ve been upcycling for many a year now the concept of a fashion hackathon was new to me. The Clotho girls informed us that they had drawn inspiration from computer ‘Hackathons’ they had attended , where computer wizards and hobbits gather in a large room and form teams that then build programmes, apps etc together in 24 hours! Their idea was to take all the clothes that they were unable to list on their clothing exchange website due to rips, broken zips, unravelling hems etc and for participants to turn them into new and beautiful items in a ‘sustainable sewing factory’. 
  
So I set up my machines and boxes of threads, scissors, haberdashery and we set design challenges – theme of festival fashion, labels to be worn on the outside (as to think about where and by whom the original garment was made) Working collectively, creating change / transformation and the teams set to work!
It was a lively day and participants fully embraced the challenges, coming up with really inventive ‘fashion hacks’ and working together to realise their designs.

So I thought I’d encourage you to have your own fashion hackathons at home!

  Here are my tips and tricks to consider when approaching your own ‘Fashion Hacks’:

- Make the most of existing fasteners

- Holes & wear are an opportunity for transformation!

- Mix & match and fuse different items together

- Create ‘multifunctional’ garments

- Play with pattern

Re working your old clothes is fun and personal. It’s important to tap into your own creativity and sense of style. Recognize the potential and look at your old clothes from a different perspective! Some basic sewing skills are necessary. If you have no experience or are new to sewing, I offer lots of accessible classes at my studio ‘Fabrications’ in Hackney, East London.

Thank you to Fabrications students for allowing me to share your creations!

Here are my tips and tricks to consider when approaching your own ‘Fashion Hacks’:

- Make the most of existing fasteners

- Holes & wear are an opportunity for transformation!

- Mix & match and fuse different items together

- Create ‘multifunctional’ garments

- Play with pattern

Re working your old clothes is fun and personal. It’s important to tap into your own creativity and sense of style. Recognize the potential and look at your old clothes from a different perspective! Some basic sewing skills are necessary. If you have no experience or are new to sewing, I offer lots of accessible classes at my studio ‘Fabrications’ in Hackney, East London.

Thank you to Fabrications students for allowing me to share your creations!

 

 

Making the most of existing fasteners……I love working with men’s shirts. Not only is the fabric stable and easy to work with they have lots of buttoning!  Often buttons on shirts are set to similar spacing, so you can button different shirts together to make a new garment or a bell tent if you keep going! Fortunately I reigned myself in to this ‘cut & paste’ collaged dress and stuck to 3 shirts! Cutting on this dress was minimal; the shaping is created through a belted gathered waist band and elastication half way down the sleeves. You could add darts on the top shirt for more fitting.

Holes and wear n tear are an opportunity for transformation…..Appliqué (or patching) is my friend. I have a number of favourite jeans that are works in progress, as another hole appears on goes a new patch! This can be done discreetly with similar fabric or show off - make your patching stand out in a crowd! I enjoy making patches from other old clothes or textiles to create motifs or ‘cheat embroideries’.

I tend to machine on my patches using a ‘3 step zig zag’ (this is stronger than a regular zig zag) or a ‘Free motion’ / quilting foot so I can sketch / squiggle around and over the patch. If using a lightweight fabric as your patch, tack some other fabric on the back to reinforce.  Take off the removable front part of the machine to give you a narrower working area. Trouser legs can get tricky and on skinny jeans you may have to open up the seam for access and then stitch back together!

Mix & match and fuse different items together…..Sometimes you might have 2 garments that just aren’t working for you or they are a bit tired and worn out! Think about combining them! Louise took an old jumper and cut it down the front and cut off the cuffs and border from an old cardigan and over locked the components together to make a new 2 tone cardigan! If you don’t have an over locker use the ‘overcast’ or stretch stitch on your machine or slip one over the other (for a thicker cardigan!)

It is possible to mix different fabric textures and weights but it does require more care and preparation tacking etc to help prevent movements!

Create ‘multifunctional’ garments….My friend and colleague David Mumford is a very clever garment upcyclist. (He also mentored at Clotho’s Fashion Hackathon)

Here he is at Fabrications teaching students the marvels of sewing and upcycling (using men’s shirts)  He used to design with the fashion brand ‘Junky Styling’ who were well known for their clever garment reinventions. Garments that can be worn in different ways are likely to be used more often over a longer period of time. 

   

Play with pattern……is also a lot of fun! Sometimes the most unexpected combination of pattern designs harmonises and works!

Here is an idea from another friend and colleague – Tree from ‘Stitchless TV’. Take 2 vintage tourist scarves to make a raglan Prada style top. (pictures taken from summer workshops at Fabrications) Tree has a unique talent in taking high fashion ideas and simplifying them down into accessible ‘speed stitching’, free style cutting projects for beginners and other home sewers. Many of the projects on her TV channel use old clothes – well worth checking her out!

I hope you are feeling inspired to host your own ‘Fashion Hackathon’ at home. Please share your creations with us,we’d love to see what you re-make! 

It's Traid's #Secondhandfirst week!

I was invited to guest write on Traid’s blog this week, so thought I'd post up a copy with a few more pictures on my own blog as well! This week Traid has initiated the first hopefully of many  #Secondhandfirst week, jam packed with interesting activities encouraging us to take the #Secondhandfirst Pledge. It is a great great initiative which also highlights the ways we buy our clothes and a reminder of all the environmental and social problems in the textile and garment supply chain. We all have the capacity to affect these problems in positive ways as conscious consumers and citizens.

The volume of textile and clothing waste in the UK is quite staggering (Source WRAP: 350,000 tonnes of used clothing goes to landfill every year. 30% of our unwanted clothes goes to landfill. 60% of UK households have unwanted clothes & textiles at home) We are throwing away or just hoarding valuable resources!!

In the ‘Hierarchy of waste’; reduce and reuse are at the top of the pyramid. For me this way of thinking and being is very easy. I was brought up on a diet of second hand being careful. Hand me downs (or hand me ups!) was the norm without any shame or stigmas that today’s youngsters seem to feel. As a teenager (and continues to be so!) sourcing clothes from charity shops was fun, a great source of individuality, re styling possibilities and affordable! I still take advantage of Traid’s famous £2 sales!! As I enter my mid years I also appreciate the emotional durability of second hand, especially items from older relatives which hold memories, stories and history. Many vintage clothes were made to last too.

Care and repair is an important part of making our old clothes go further and re connecting with the joy in fixing and looking after items. Tired old clothes gives us an opportunity for re styling an item giving that buzz of wearing something completely different and you had a hand in making it happen! I have observed a skill shortage and lack of confidence in being able to do this. Back in the day these skills would have been passed on through the family or taught in school. This has motivated me to run regular classes in learning to sew and refreshing your wardrobe through simple alterations, mending, darning & embellishing and these classes are popular which is heartening!

Upcycling adds value through creativity and design. Items too damaged for re use present an opportunity for transformation. A few years ago I iinitiated ‘The Upcycling Academy’ to give young people the opportunity to experience a ‘Productive Line’ to re imagine a different approach to fashion, to create rather than consume. Partnering with Traid, War on Want & the Craftivist Collective, we each added ‘Values’ along the line.

Taking inspiration from ‘Cradle to Cradle’ thinking, imagine a garment circulating through many owners in its lifetime? (Truthfully many garments never reach their full potential in relation to resources, energy used to make and distribute the item)

I love the recent trend for Clothes Swapping or its older sister ‘Swishing’. Jo of Mrs Bears Clothes Swap tells me that that she has regulars who use her swaps to ‘rotate their wardrobe’ – brilliant!

Wonderfully TV programmes such as ‘The great British sewing Bee’ which added an upcycling / alteration challenge to the second series and ‘This old Thing’ (the vintage clothes show) have inspired the nation to look at old clothes and lost textile skills with a fresh passion. Even Coronation Street discussed the possibility of an ‘upcycled wedding’! It’s all good!

So now over to you dear reader! Get involved and feel inspired! There are a range of fun activities taking place during #Secondhandfirst week.

My next Fabrications craft club on Thursday 20^th November is a #Secondhandfirst themed evening with a clothes swap upstairs in the shop and revamp / mending session downstairs in the workshop. More information and Booking info.

P.S: All the featured projects in this post use clothing sourced from Traid!

Waste Less Live More

 

Today is the first day of 'Waste Less Live More' week. An initiative by 'Keep Britain Tidy' to raise awareness that environmental and social issues are interlinked and tackling these issues together is a far more effective solution. This year's theme is 'Be Resourceful', which is right up Fabrications street!

 I was approached by the 'Love your Clothes Campaign' to share one of my garment upcycling ideas as part of their 'Waste Less Live More' daily updates in collaboration with the 'Centre for Sustainable Fashion' . Between the two of them they will be streaming lots of tips and advise on how to get the most out of your old clothes in fun, practical and stylish ways. So make sure you tune in to their daily updates this week!

So here is my tutorial on how to transform a man's shirt into a stylish summer top. Time to raid your Father's, Brother's, Boyfriend's wardrobes! Thankyou Ali from Love your Clothes (London's arm) for taking such great pictures to illustrate how it's done. 

 

 

Step 1 -  Iron out any wrinkles to prepare for ....

Step 2 - Cut off the arms and cut through front and back of shirt in an even , straight line. Avoid accidentally cutting through a button! (which your scissors won't be very pleased about)

 

Step 3 - undo the buttons down the shirt front to reveal the inside back panel where you want to measure down 2" from the cut edge, put in a row of pins or mark with tailor's chalk.  

Step 4 - Folding under at the beginning and end (to hide raw edge), pin cotton tape (1" wide) along the row of pins / chalked line from side seam to side seam.  

Step 5 - Measure down 1.5" to add a second row of tape as per Step 4.  

Step 6 - Attach cotton tape to the inside (back panel) of the shirt by stitching along each edge, creating a decent sized channel for threading elastic through.

 

Step 7 - Attach a safety pin to your elastic (I used 6mm elastic) and thread through each channel, using the safety pin to secure the elastic at each end while you determine how gathered the back panel needs to be to fit your body. This can be done roughly at this stage and tweaked later to get a better fit.

 

Step 8 - Now it's time to play with the sleeves to make straps. Find 'Centre Back' and mark with a pin. Temporarily pin the sleeve cuffs on the front and lift sleeves over your shoulders towards the Centre Back pin mark. Now you know how much of the sleeves to cut down!

Step 9 - Set the machine to the longest straight stitch and run along the newly cut edge through both sides of sleeves (opposite end to cuffs) Pull on either top or bottom thread to gather.the fabric.

 

Step 10  - Pin both cuff ends facing down on top of outside of shirt fronts ('Right Sides Together') either side of the button opening and 'Stay Stitch' in position (stitch as close to the edge as you can, this stitching is just to help you for the next step.

Step 11 - Pin the cotton tape along the stay stitch line and just along each shirt fronts (not the back panel yet!) This time fold raw edges on each end of the cotton tape towards you (as this will get folded over as a hem later)  

 

Step 12 - Position the other end of the sleeve straps either side of your 'Centre Back' pin. Repeat same actions as Step 10 - pin 'Right Sides Together' and 'Stay Stitch' in position.

Step 13 - Attach cotton tape to the back panel, following the same method as Step 11

Step 14 - Fold the cotton tape over creating a hem in 3 parts (Front/Back/Front) on the inside. You can use an iron to help press into position neatly. The sleeve straps and any raw edges should be sandwiched and hidden behind the cotton tape.

Step 15 - Pin into position and stitch down the remaining cotton edge along the 3 sections of the shirt. 

Step 16 - As you've stitched the tape in 3 sections, you should have a neat opening on the back panel to thread elastic through to add a third level of elastication on the back.

Step 17 - Final touches! Pull elastic in all 3 channels to fit your body or ruched how you like it! Once happy cut back any excess elastic and hand stitch to anchor on the inside of each end the cotton tape channel.

As with many upcycling projects you will be led by the size and style of the shirt to create many variations on a theme. The blue shirt was an XL so needed more gathering on the back panel. On the purple gingham I also gathered the middle section of the sleeve straps to create a different finish. The possibilities are endless! Happy Upcycling! I'd love to see what you create! Please post your pictures on my Facebook or Twitter pages with the #wllm14