Recycle. Repair. Reuse. Grab your Fiskars scissors & have some upcycle fun!

I have lots of tops, dresses and cushions with former lives as curtains, tablecloths and duvet covers. I love a visit to the local charity shop/thrift store followed by an evening armed with my dressmaking scissors (Fiskars are the best!), measuring tape and sewing machine to give a discarded garment a new lease of life. I find the creative process relaxing and therapeutic and it brings me happiness and joy knowing that I have contributed to the charity and helped the fabric avoid landfill that bit longer.

Apparently, it takes around 1,800 gallons of water to make one pair of jeans and 400 gallons to make a cotton shirt. To put this in perspective, the average person drinks 182 gallons of water a year. So isn't it wonderful if, once these clothes are no longer wanted, they can be reused to make something else.

Earlier this year I launched my sewing pattern business, Greyfriars and Grace. I design sewing patterns with an environmental focus. Many of my patterns include an option to reuse existing clothing or fabric and so help reduce excessive manufacturing, the release of plastic microfibres into our oceans and landfill.

Where possible my patterns include an option to use unwanted clothes with existing buttons/buttonholes, collar, cuffs and zippers (a.k.a. the tricky sewing bits that many like to avoid) so you get the benefit of the beautiful professional tailoring but you just need to do some clever cutting and straight sewing - it's win win.

Prior to setting up the business, I found many You Tube videos on how to transform and recycle clothes but very few formal patterns. The videos were inspiring but often required a certain level of independent sewing knowledge to get the sizing right. As a result, I started to create my own patterns and have spent the last two years digitalising them and writing the accompanying step-by-step guides.

I want to make sewing and textile recycling fun, exciting and creative. There are also serious reasons for encouraging the use of natural textiles and reuse of existing clothing and fabrics highlighted by the following quotes (references at the end of the story):

"Total greenhouse gas emissions from textile production, at 1.2 billion tonnes annually, are more than those of all international flights and maritime shipping combined"(1)

"Our clothing is polluting the ocean with plastic. Washing synthetic clothes releases half a million tonnes of synthetic microfibers into the ocean annually (2) [equivalent to more than 50 billion plastic bottles. Microfibres are likely impossible to clean up and can enter food chains (3)]"

"Every second, the equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned. An estimated USD500 billion value is lost every year due to clothing that is barely worn and rarely recycled. If nothing changed, by 2050 the fashion industry will use up a quarter of the world's carbon budget."(4)

It may seem relatively insignificant to some for an individual to make some of their own clothes, choose repair over dispose or select sustainable clothing companies rather than the giant fast fashion companies but small steps do aggregate and will eventually turn into miles.

It is about changing the culture of fashion from fast and disposable to less volume with higher quality, made to last, less detrimental environmental impact, recycled and rented and more appreciation of it's origins with no child labour or unethical working conditions.

I believe it is possible to change buying habits. Ten years ago, almost no one brought a reuseable bag to the supermarket. Now, if you don't have one at the checkout, most people mutter an apology of sorts, mumble something about having left them in the car and whisper can they get a bag please.

Nowadays, thankfully, hardly anyone would wear real fur for fashion. Once it was the symbol of oppulence, glamour and wealth but it now represents cruelty and inhumanity. I believe it is possible for environmental priorities to impact fashion choices and textile manufacture in the same way that animal rights have almost abolished the use of real fur in the fashion industry and animal testing in the cosmetics industry.

I am just a teeny tiny piece of the jigsaw but I do hope Greyfriars and Grace can help make a contribution, however small, to combat the detrimental environmental effects of the culture of fast fashion and at the same time, create some happiness and assist people who enjoy sewing and want to create beautiful, individual and quality clothing, made with love.

References:

(1) (3) (4) Ellen MacArthur Foundation, A new textiles economy: Redesigning fashion's future, 2017

(2) UN Environment Programme, UN Alliance For Sustainable Fashion addresses damage of "fast fashion"/Fashion's tiny hidden secret, March 2019