Sewing and the environment.

-
Please like and visit my site; william-sews.com

I’ve been following Peter Lappin’s blog, Male Pattern Boldness for some time and this week he posted about the environmental impact of home sewing. As far as fabric goes, I have very little waste, whatever I have left over from clothing goes into quilting. The smallest pieces I cut are 4cmx10.5cm (1.1/2″x3.1/2″), so not much left over, but I do like to sew with cotton which isn’t an environmentally friendly crop.
I buy most of my fabric from op shops, same with my clothes – sheets are great for sewing as well


These are my tiny pieces of fabric, (What a blurry photograph, too early in the morning) I use them to make ‘Roman Road’ quilts – they can’t get any smaller than this. I also give pieces to other quilters as well, I’ve been doing that a lot lately because I haven’t been quilting – I have a backlog to finish.
Anyway, I like fabric too much to throw any away.
I darn socks and have become very good at it – even better now I’ve found a darning mushroom.
I don’t know how to create an actual link but this is Peter Lappin’s blog address:
malepatternboldness.blogspot.com
I’ve finished a shirt except for buttons and holes, I shall do that today, a bit warm this afternoon, it’s been pleasant up to now.
Time for lunch and then to face the machine…
Regards,
Will.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Where it all began...

-
Image
 I was born in Melbourne, Australia, and in 1964, I travelled to London; "Swinging London" - Wow - or groovy, as we said way back then. It was a rite of passage for young Australians at this time to travel to the UK, as working holidayers.  It would be easy to leave Melbourne behind, it was an uptight town - the bars and hotels closed at six in the evening, hard to believe, but true. People left work at 5:30 and had half an hour to socialise,  no place for young people who wanted to have fun. Leaving on the RHMS Ellenis.  The trip took six weeks and stopped at exotic and wonderful places on the way, eventually arriving at Portsmouth, surrounded by ghosts - the English were so pale! It was a surprise.  Took a steam train to London - what a place London was, colourful and exciting, Carnaby St, Kings Rd, fabulous clothes, wonderful music, and later, Biba, just people having a fab time. Here I was, in a young person's paradise, I was a hairdresser at the time, but t...
Read more

Celtic with a twist.

-
Image
 I've been working on a new block, it's intriguing but I have figured it out. This is not an age-old traditional block, in fact, it was designed in 2012 by Laura Roberts for McCalls (My second favourite shirt pattern maker - Simplicity is first). I don't think there is enough tonal contrast in the fabrics I used for the 'twist' part, but I have put together a better combination for the next one. It looks complicated and it does take a degree of concentration, something I lack sometimes. It has an interesting method of attaching the surrounding strips to the centre square, a method that could be useful for other quilting blocks. There are a few new blocks (new to me) that I am wanting to try, so the half-finished shirt I have been working on gets pushed further back on the to do list. December is the first month of summer here, the weather has been delightful so far - I hope it won't be too hot - love winter. My lot for today, Take care,
Read more

Over Here! A musical starring The Andrews Sisters, 1974/75.

-
Image
  We saw this show on Broadway on its last night. When we arrived in the theatre, I noticed that there was no orchestra in the pit - this was the first Broadway musical I'd seen, and I thought, maybe the music is recorded, how disappointing. However, the overture played, and the entire orchestra rose from the middle of the stage, glittering and loud. It was a fun show, and great to see the 'girls', Laverne, the oldest sister had died many years before, but Joyce DeYoung was a perfect replacement. Patty and Maxene still had all that energy. Those girls could really sing, they had always been around in films, but I never thought I'd see them live. We saw the show on the last night, apparently there had been a dispute over money, and the producers decided to pull the plug.  After the show, a group of Veterans joined the sisters on stage and gave them an award. Then, the pair sang all their old songs, Rum & Coca-Cola, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy - all of them, it was unexpe...
Read more