-Thomas

What is your motivation behind making sustainable fashion decisions?
Getting ready for the Mayoral campaign has been a learning curve I’ve relished. As well as explaining new policy and good achievements like safer cycling, light rail, computer access for refugees, cleaner city harbour, ultrafast broadband, Fairtrade Capital and community gardens, now I have to dress to show I can lead the city, without sacrificing my values – or over-spending. Fortunately, choosing clothes can be fun and sustainable!

How do you go about finding the right stuff?
After a few colour tips from Samantha Hannah, I met some very sympathetic Wellington fashion designers and added to my op shop collections. A quick explore when I’m passing the Salvation Army in Rintoul St, Taranaki St or Tawa is usually worthwhile, even for basics like jeans. In more up-market spots in Cuba Street like the Recycle Boutique or, for something really special, Ziggurat, I often find a beautiful bargain. Jewelry is either a few well-loved pieces from my mother, made by myself or sourced from Trade Aid for a splash of colour.

What did you score in your latest quest?
I wanted smart pieces in cream so I enjoyed choosing a linen jacket from Untouched World, a silk shirt from Starfish and an end-of-line bargain from Voon. I’m sure these choices will last me for many years. Janet Dunn has set up ReDunn Fashions to up-cycle pre-loved clothing and I bought this amusing jacket at her first soirée. Natural fabrics, recycled gear and new ethical items make a happy combination -lovely clothes and good businesses.

Left: Full-length-jacket $17 from Salvation Army, Taranaki St. Suit from Secondo, Tinakori Rd. Beads from my mother. Shoes – I think I got married in these!
Right: This was at the Brooklyn Community Gardens last weekend, planting a tamarillo I took from my home garden. Andrea Moore top from the Brooklyn Frock Schwap. Scarf from mother. Trousers from some Salvation Army store.

Left: Janet Dunn jacket
Right: Jacket from the 6th Annual Preloved Fashion Sale. Silk blouse (feels fabulous!) from Starfish. Beads from Trade Aid.

-Thomas

-Thomas & Hannah

Once again I’ve left it a little late to blog about this, but if you’re in welly this weekend I’d HIGHLY recommend popping by St Anne’s Church hall at the end of Emmett St in Newtown for Fabric-a-brac, to stock up on your sewing stash, and help someone else clear out theirs.

Bring along your sewing scissors if you need to get them sharpened, and they’ll also be able to answer your sewing machine maintenance questions and have sewing machine needles at great prices.

There will be the usual selection of vintage and modern fabrics, with highlights being special European designer fabrics and trims, some oh-so-cute Japanese fabric, high-quality upholstery fabric and a huge selection of buttons.

I’m especially excited about getting some goodies from Stitchbird and that lady with the amazing vintage buttons… See you there!

As well as the sets, we’ll also be selling single copies of issues 3-9, so if I were you, I’d head out to the Dowse this Saturday (June 12) from 10am – 3pm to make sure you get those issues you need to complete your collection.

After the fair, if there are any left, we’ll pop them up on the website for sale, but as we’ve had lots of people contacting us, wanting to get hold of them, I can’t guarantee there will be any left by the end of the day.

Looking forward to our last fair (behind a stall anyway) for a while. There are so many fantastic stallholders on the list that I imagine we’ll be doing quite a bit of buying this time, as well. Check out the Craft2.0 blog for more info on which crafters will be there selling their wares, and hopefully we’ll see you in the Hutt in a couple of days!

The site is reviving the idea of using badges to reward certain behaviour, and this collection of badges makes it easy for you, the consumer, to pick your favourite cafe with a conscience. You can also follow the Conscious Consumers Wellington group on facebook!

-Thomas

If my workshop wasn’t that small and east facing I’d consider installing something there. The more I look at the idea though, the likelier it becomes I’ll work on a properly sized version for our flat – maybe 100 cans instead of 50, as in the example. The instructions for this project you can find on a blog all about cars, strangely enough; car enthusiasts do spend many hours in cold garages, after all.

I’m also quite intrigued by the commercially produced solar heater now (oh, them inventive Canadians!). A testament to the efficiency of the product is that it was actually developed in the cold North.

Now, don’t start sending me your sticky, empty pop cans (in fact, avoiding them in the first place would be much better), but I may have to arrange for some fun dumpster diving times.

-Thomas

A very clever visualization by Natasha Vermeulen of the core values of the anti-mining protests – free to download and share at endemicworld.com.

- Thomas

Freakin amazing embroidery by Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching

I’ve just received a very exciting email from the incredible Leanne Prain who wrote Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti. After being interviewed for The knitty-gritty of craftivism in issue 8 of WSW, Leanne has gotten underway with a new book project . She’s really keen to have submissions from all over the world for her new title, Hoopla, The Art of Unexpected Embroidery, and asked me to pass this on to all keen stitchers:

Do you design unusual or unexpected pieces of needlepoint? If so, you should design a pattern for Hoopla, The Art of Unexpected Embroidery, to be published by Arsenal Pulp Press in autumn 2011.

Hoopla: The Art of Unexpected Embroidery rebels against the traditional notions of quaint embroidery with motifs of flowers and songbirds. The book will feature unusual stitch work on a variety of surfaces and textures. With off-beat patterns including subway maps, feminist Girl Guide badges, and metal band letterforms; Hoopla will demonstrate that modern embroidery artists are as sharp as the needles that they work with. If you describe your stitch-work as arresting, subversive, quirky, or conceptual, Hoopla should feature your design work.

Yeehaa! Check out the unexpected embroidery site for more info on how to get involved.

In last autumn’s issue of World Sweet World mag we published the great project by Christine Reitze (check it out here) showing you how to make snuggly winter curtains out of blankets. We have the beauties from that project hanging in our bedroom already, but with winter looming again I figured I needed to kit out the rest of the house. The only problem is that, living in a villa with super-tall windows, I’ve been struggling to find blankets that will be long or wide enough to do the trick.

On a recent trip to the fabric shop I stumbled across the perfect solution: Lining tape. Now this may sound kind of obvious, but using blankets as lining instead of the main act means that it doesn’t matter if they don’t reach the ground, and they don’t have to be as wide, because the lining doesn’t need to be gathered. Bingo!

Because our windows are so big, I opted for a cheap ($5m), medium-weight fabric, knowing that with the blankets they’d still feel nice and heavy. I made some simple curtains (check out the previous post if you don’t know how to do that), sewed lining tape to the top of a blanket, and then hung the blanket to the back of my curtains with hooks. I now have full-length, totally insulated curtains that look heavy and drape well, and they only cost me around $60, including the blankets, tape and hooks.

I’m stoked with how much difference they make to the room, and our landlord is getting a grant to install insulation and a heatpump through the EECA energywise scheme , but we’re still keen to do further winter-proofing before we have a tiny child in the house.

Any ideas? What are you doing to keep your diggs toasty this winter?