Fashion, as many people know, is not the most environmentally friendly of things. There are so many aspects to consider, from the environmental impact of making the fabric, the societal impact of making the clothes, to the waste of pieces that are discarded after being worn a handful of times. Working in slow fashion, there are things I can do to help in my corner but I sometimes feel like it is such a tiny corner and I still seem to create so much waste. Whenever a garment is cut out, whatever doesn’t make it into the clothes is rubbish. If it is something like silk or cotton, at least that will biodegrade over time, but polyester? That’s just plastic with a fancy name. So, a while ago I started keeping most of the fabric scraps I accumulated. Many of them are big enough for patches or false hems, some are big enough for masks or other small projects, but so many still aren’t practical for even those things. I happen to have a table top weaving loom, and I thought if I could collect enough scraps in a variety of colours I could possibly weave something beautiful and create art out of rubbish.
This was a thought in my head for a very long time, but first I needed enough scraps so that was a good excuse not to do anything. That excuse stopped working surprisingly quickly! Then, I wanted an idea that I had confidence in, because if I hated it halfway through it would just sit on my loom for months *cough, years*. I know this about myself! Lastly, I also needed the time, and the energy. Once the loom is set up it is something I can pull out and work on in short bursts, but it takes a few hours to warp up in the first place. And if I am being honest, at the end of the day sometimes I really don’t want to look at fabric any more!
I had thoughts of wall hangings, and pictures, and traditional art pieces but I guess if you are a hammer every problem is a nail? So I settled on a wearable art piece. The first step was to warp up my loom. I chose a cotton yarn that I had sitting around for a long time, and with it being a creamy off-white I hoped it would work well with the blues I wanted to use. I went through my scraps bucket, pulled out anything that was blue, mostly blue, silver, grabbed some white chiffon thinking it could fill in the gaps, and found myself with a LARGE pile of fabric! I also worked out approximately how much fabric I would need, made sure to add some length for the bounce back (when the fabric is on the loom it is under much more tension than it will normally be under and the fabric will become smaller!) and just got started.
There were many moments that I didn’t think it would work! But my husband is comfortingly straightforward, and if he didn’t dismiss it as silly from the beginning then that was good enough for me! So I persevered. It helped that weaving with chunks of fabric goes much faster than with yarn.
Once I reached the end of the warp threads it was time to take it off the loom and unravel it! Until this point I had only seen a chunk of about 30cm at a time, so I was going to see the whole piece finally! I was quite pleased - I think it was better than I had been expecting. It was also reasonably delicate, which I was expecting, and there was no way I was going to be able to cut out a pattern without everything falling apart. Fortunately I had realised this quite early on so I was prepared. I had already cut out the pattern in a lovely soft blue cotton which I was planning to use both as the lining and as the underlay. All of the underlay pieces, which were going to be the shell of the jacket and the facings, I pinned onto the wrong side of my new art piece. At which point I realised I had not added enough, and the fabric had bounced back even more than I had expected and/or had gotten narrower as well. They didn’t fit. Sleeves take up a lot of room, did you know?
Anyway. I am the puzzle master, spent longer than I am willing to share re-arranging pieces, and managed to fit them if I put a seam in one of the facing pieces. Wonderful. I was not willing to re-warp for the sake of one piece!
Then, with all of these pieces pinned to my fabric, I sewed around the edges before I cut them out. It worked perfectly. And from there, the making of the jacket went more or less as you would expect. (and you can’t even see the seam in that facing piece, so that’s a win) It did come out a little thicker than I was expecting, but it has so much structure and I am so pleased with how well it holds the shape!
I have learned some things for if I try this again. I really enjoyed the weaving and I have other ideas - as you can imagine being a seamstress in Wellington, where our uniform is all black all the time, I have many different scraps of black in lots of textures. I think a textured monochrome piece could be fun! The weight of the fabric works well for outer layers, but I think it could also be interesting for a pinafore style overdress.
In conclusion - this was a fun and interesting project. I got to use some problem solving and creativity and come out with a piece that I think is really quite beautiful! I hope you agree! And if you have thoughts for other things I can make with woven scraps of fabric, let me know =)
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