Thursday 21 April 2016

Fashion Revolution Week - Know your fabric

This week is Fashion Revolution Week and there seems to be a lot more interest in it this year than last which is fantastic, people are being encouraged to ask brands "who made my clothes?" to encourage transparency in the garment industry. A lot of people who read this will make their own clothes so the question should be "Who made my fabric?"

Organic Textile Company
via
This is one of the  main reasons I started sewing. I couldn't afford a wardrobe entirely made up of People Tree and Seasalt clothes, both are the only brands I buy new and have fantastic ethics records from fabric to manufacture, but I could afford organic cotton and second hand fabric. Most of my second hand fabric comes from other peoples stash clear outs, gifts or from the charity shops and new fabric almost always comes from The Organic Textile Company or Kitschy Coo.

 I did find a new place to spend my money recently though...

While we were away in Islay during the Easter holidays we visited the Islay Woolen Mill which will now be my go to place for anything wooly!




I was in heaven. They use local wool to weave into gorgeous tweeds and tartans and have done work on fabric for films, including the Braveheart film tartan. The man who owns the mill, Gordon, moved from Yorkshire 40 years ago and restored the Islay Mill to it's former glory, and it really was glorious!



The fabric was £39/m which I thought was amazing value given that you can see every part of the process in the building and the fabric itself is fantastic quality, think Harris Tweed but smoother and less hairy!

So, who made your fabric?

There are various Fashion Revolution events happening in Glasgow and Edinburgh over the next few days, see them all here.


Saturday 16 April 2016

Sewing for pleasure again - A Starry Lady Skater

It was on the hanger squint, the hem isn't really squint :)

I made something! It has been a long time since I made something for me, what with Mum, business and diabetes, my sewing time has been limited. The last thing I made, last October, sits in my basket of doom waiting for fitting issues to be resolved... It is one of those things that has lots of emotions tied up in it because of when I was making it (please say other folk find this and I am not as crazy as I feel) so I am not sure it will ever be finished.



Last week I found myself with a free evening (gasp!) so I raked out this fantastic Girl Charlee jersey fabric that I won in a giveaway that Helen at Just Sew Therapeutic ran last year and, after some deliberation about patterns,  set to work on my 6th Lady Skater.

The only think I did differently this time was that I cut the bodice in the size bigger than I  normally would so there was little need for it to stretch over my bust, it is printed jersey so goes white when stretched too much. 

Awful photo I know but it really was the best of a bad lot and I was freezing!
 I really like it and it will look much better when I don't have the tights line above my waist :)

Now if spring would just appear so I could actually wear something that doesn't contain or need layered with, wool that would be great...