Repurposed Crafting

Since this blog is for my thesis project concerning sustainability and the voluntary simplicity movement, I figured it’d be a good idea to start writing about it. I gave a very brief introduction to what these concepts are in A Little Background… but haven’t mentioned it in any of my weekly project posts.

So, why not start today?

I am taking a class called Sustainable Consumption this semester. So far, we have covered the broad topics of consumerism, pollution, food and water, and starting this week, clothing. Today’s class required us to read an article by Juliet B. Schor called “Cleaning the Closet: Toward a New Fashion Ethic” published in Sustainable Planet (2002.)

This article talks about how clothes came to be cheap and the consumer mindset fostered by advertisements which surround us. I fall into this trap at times too. The idea that we need to buy more clothes to add variety to our wardrobes, that we should follow fashion trends, that ‘you can’t wear the same dress twice,’ that you can’t pass up a bargain…these are pretty hard habits to break. However, if you think about how those cheap clothes are made [primarily sweat shops] and how workers are treated, you might think twice about buying that brand new pair of boots that would match perfectly with your brand new dress. It’s like the Diderot effect-you buy one new item and feel compelled to revamp everything else in the process.

Fortunately, there are alternatives. Stop shopping is one, but might be a bit too drastic for many. If anything, spend more on good quality clothing that will stand the test of time instead of diving into bargain bins for anything. Spending is studied all the time and if certain trends are noticed, then businesses can adapt. Schor discusses several methods to clothing sustainability for a personal and global scale.

I found the article gave me a slightly new outlook on my project. I won’t be changing things on a global scale, but I am raising awareness-for myself and some of the people around me. There are so many people who have adopted a DIY lifestyle and/or support local businesses and the numbers keep growing! It’s amazing what awareness can do in affecting a person’s decisions. My campus has hosted a few events that focused on supporting local businesses. There were so many unique restaurants and stores that I never even knew existed! I’m starting to go off on a tangent now, but it’s pretty exciting to be part of a generation that promotes changes in terms of our sustainability.

As I was perusing some DIY books at Barnes & Nobles, I came across a book called 99 ways to cut, sew, trim & tie your T-shirt into something special. I flipped through quickly and saw one that I clearly remembered seeing somewhere. So I ran to my laptop [a good 5 hours later when I got home] and checked me bookmarks. Lo and behold, I found it online! I thought it was cute, but the design flashed by too quickly so I only had a slight idea of how to implement it. I also thought it to be a bit too scandalous for me, but I knew I had a busy week and wouldn’t have as much time to sew something like last week’s kimono top. I checked the weather and saw that it would be a beautiful high of 75 and decided to whip out my scissors and an old T-shirt from my pile of scraps.

This was an old orchestra shirt of mine. I liked the design, but I hardly wore it so i deemed it suitable for my scissors. I folded it in half and traced what I would cut, making sure to cut straps while removing the entire image from the back.

Since the straps were super long, I trimmed them and used the excess to make rosettes from a tutorial I found a while back and then sewed them onto the front of the tank. It’s been a while since I’ve hand sewn anything so it was the most time-consuming portion of making this tank top, but definitely well worth it.