Salvaging Sewing Machines

This sewing machine was salvaged from a Household Waste and Recycle Centre (HWRC) last month in East London. I'm shocked that people choose to discard sewing machines at their local HWRC when there are so many avenues which enable them to stay in use including ebay, freecycle, flooting and taking it to a charity shop.

In addition to multiple re-use avenues, there is also a growing craft market forcing a rise of sewing machine sales. I have found articles each year from 2009 'Tesco sells two sewing machines a minute' to 2013 'Britain's got a sewing bee in it's bonnet causing sewing machine sales to soar' documenting the clear demand from a growing market.

In addition to the Singer below, I sorted through many other sewing machines that had been rescued. They were old electrical machines, with matching top thread and bobbin threaded up and ready to sew, with an array of spare bobbins, unpickers, needles and safety pins in the little storage compartment, with the cable and foot pedal wrapped carefully around the machine. They are definitely not waste and should be used!

The Sewing Machine Project operates in America, collecting and distributing unwanted sewing machines to communities around the world, supporting people to pursue creative projects.

If anyone knows of any sewing machine re-use projects in the UK please do let me know!

Knit Wits

Pictures from the Knit Wits stall at Brixton Makers Market last Saturday. I am part of this great knitting group, for more info and pictures of the things we make visit the blog!

Upcycled Meeting Room Chairs

I have been working with fellow colleagues at Waste Watch www.wastewatch.org.uk to use unwanted textiles and clothing to reupholster the boring meeting room chairs.We completed them last week. Here they are! Check out wastelesslivemore.com to learn more about the campaign. Tweet your examples @wastewatch #wastelesslivemore

From this....

To this!!

Upcycling Chairs!

Old chair

Meeting room

The chairs in this meeting room are in desperate need of an update. We completed our first upcycled chair today and it looks awesome! One down - 7 to go! We are re-upholstering the chairs with pre-loved fabrics selected from our 4 themes, branded with 4 different colourways. 

Deconstructing, sanding and painting the frame.

Re-upholstering the seat and back panels with pre-loved materials.

Tools of the trade.

An upcycled 'Green Economy' colour themed chair.

 For more information about Waste Watch and the four themes please visit the website.

SmockShop

My good friend Celina brought me back the catalogue from the recent Ethics+Aesthetics=Sustainable Fashion exhibition at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery in New York

Included in the catalouge was a paper pattern for the smock by Smockshop whose work had been exhibited.

I decided to make my version of the smock from the generic pattern insert within the catalogue out of some fabric that had been given to me a while ago and the belt from my Trench Transformation project.

In a similar way to the Design_Download project run by ShowStudio (and also exhibited at the Fashion Revolution exhibition at Somerset house) I find the individual and unique interpretations of the exact same pattern piece to be an exciting and fascinating example of creativity. Furthermore, the more that people contribute to the project by making their version of the smock, the more interesting and varied the collection of work. For smockshop, the mass production of their pattern by a workforce of individual makers, creating a one off piece, links the workforce within a smock community, expressing your unique voice and identity whilst also feeling part of a wider network.