Sourcing fabric for upcycling - or how I ended up with a 38-pound box of it

In order to upcycle fabric, you have to have fabric to work with. What I have discovered over the last year is that there is more than enough fabric in the world to upcycle. 

I started my upcycling quest with fabric I had laying around - old clothes, socks with holes and linens from my parents house. Then I made my first ask on the neighborhood sell/barter/trade Facebook page.  At that point, I was looking for some fabric to make colorful patches to use in mending.  wo neighbors obliged with a couple bags of scraps.  

I had wanted to make a braided rug for decades and sometime last winter I  decided to host a fundraiser for Saint Paul Youth Services.  The plan was to have a house party in May 2020 where I "sold" things that I had to made to encourage zero waste practices and to support this racial justice organization.  In order to purchase supplies for both projects,  I went to a Goodwill Outlet to buy t-shirts to cut into strips for the rug and fabric to make bags for zero waste kits to take to the coffee shop or restaurant.  

I made several kits with thrifted silverware and a mason jar mag. Of course I never hosted that fundraiser and you can't bring your own mug most places nowadays so those kits are sitting there until we are all vaccinated. 

Then I started looking on Facebook Marketplace for fabric that people were selling, I bought a lot of upholstery fabric pieces. Now my neighbors are offering me fabric without my asking. I have taken some like some like some old jeans and have had to turn down some offers.

I received the mother lode of all fabric lots a few weeks ago. Many of the Goodwill organizations in the United States offer items through online auctions.  I bid on a few fabric lots, but I was always outbid. then of course I bid something like $35 on a 38-pound lot of patterned fabric and I was the high bidder.  A few weeks later the box arrived. 

The above my picture is my guest room right now. It is going to take me awhile to use all that fabric!   

Upcycling the upcycling

Working on sewing projects inevitably results in fabric scraps. Upcycling often results in more scraps than virgin fabric because pre-made clothes have features like seams or screen printing that aren't easy to use in other projects. That means I need to upcycle my upcycling!

In the old days people used to save fabric scraps to stuff pillows. However, I have gotten used to modern pillows with fiberfill and don't particularly like to lay on lumps. Using finely shredded fabric would solve that problem, but you can't shred fabric in a home paper cutter and they don't make home fabric shredders. The cheapest industrial one I found online was $5,000.  There are textile shredding services, but they tend to serve customers bigger than just me. 

I live in a cold climate so I have been using these scraps to stuff "draft dodgers" that go at the bottom of exterior doors to stop cold air from coming in.  I took the idea from a member who posted about uses for fabric scraps on one of the Facebook pages associated with Zero Waste Saint Paul.

Making a draft dodger is an easy sewing exercise. In it's simplest form, you cut a rectangle of fabric about 10 inches high and the length of your door and frame (generally 35 to 45 inches) long. You fold the rectangle in half, right sides together.  Then you stitch a seam on the long edge to make a tube. I leave both the short seams unsewn. You then turn it inside out and stuff. 

The scraps need to be small enough to not get into a tangled mess. I have found it easier to stuff from both ends since the tubes tend to be pretty long. I use a rubber band on the end I am not stuffing so the material doesn't fall out. Then I sew up the ends. While I use a sewing machine, it would be easy enough to hand sew one. 

This winter I made at least a dozen draft dodgers for a donation to a wonderful organization I serve on the board of, Saint Paul Youth Services.  

I made my draft dodgers a little fancier than what I described above because I was using them to teach myself new sewing skills. So mine featured applique, piecework, pintucks and ruffles.

Here are some examples. 

Why upcycling is my art form

I have always had a need to physically create things. Over the years I have cycled through different arts and crafts. I landed on cooking as one of my art forms - it is useful and doesn't lend itself to having a pile of unfinished projects (a weakness of mine). More recently I have added sewing to my repertoire. 

A more typical way of approaching sewing is to first decide what you are going to make, then second to purchase a pattern or an online tutorial, and last purchase the fabric and other supplies you need. While sometimes I go that route, I often take a different approach. I wait until materials (often used or new materials people don't want ) come into my life and then I decide what I am going to make. 

I have chosen to do this for many reasons and one of them is that we are extracting resources at a rate that is simply not sustainable.  We use items for short periods of time and then we are done with them. 

This video The Story of Stuff addresses our linear production model and the model's true costs. The model has resulted in environmental degradation, unsafe and unfair working conditions and oodles of stuff we have to dispose of in some way and that way is always problematic.  

That is why I upcycle. 

 

Visible mending - Or how do I take care of that ink stain?

I own a mustard yellow and green dress made of linen. It's a unique design and I like to wear it in the spring and summer. Of course, a couple years ago I managed to get three ink stains on the chest area where someone couldn't help but notice. I washed the dress at home using various methods of removing stains. None of them worked. I took it to the dry cleaners and they couldn't remove the stains either. Then the dress sat there in my closet, but I really didn't want to get rid of it.  

Then I came across the article on visible mending I mentioned in my first blog post. I became slightly obsessed with visible meaning, reading everything I could cough up on the internet. Then I realized what I could with that dress that had been sitting in my closet.  I knew how to embroider daisies when I was seven. I should be able to do it again in my forties. 

I went to the local fabric store and stared at the various skeins of embroidery floss until I found one that matched with the color scheme. I also bought an embroidery hoop.  And then I Googled how to embroider daisy chains because, in the forty years between 2019 and when I learned to embroider, I had forgotten. I stitched over the stains and added more design elements. In the end the embroidery looked as if it had meant to be there.

My skills today are a bit better than they were in 2019. If I had to do it over again, I would have added a stabilizer to the fabric such as a light interfacing or some other lightweight fabric. However, even with my imperfect stitching, I could wear the dress again and I extended the use of the dress by a season or two. What if we all did this with our clothes?

First post

A picture from about 1977 that includes my mother, my brother and me wearing a dress my mother made

I am the daughter of immigrants from India. My mother grew up at a time when women were gaining more opportunity.  She went to college and then graduate school. She also learned  "domestic arts" such as sewing and knitting. She made many of my clothes when I was little and before she went to work as a computer programmer. I completed my first embroidery kit maybe in second grade. When I was in junior high my mother taught me to sew. I made many of my clothes when I was a teenager, but then I set it aside for nearly 30 years, not intentionally, but by happenstance. Every once in a blue moon I would take out my sewing machine, but it did not occur me to use it very much. 

Then in 2019, I read an article on visible mending in our local newspaper.  I will write more about that later. The article piqued my interest. That led me to take a couple classes at our local sewing store, Treadle Yard Goods. Then the pandemic hit. I made dozens of masks to donate. I made dozens of masks for our family.  I wrestled with my sewing machine before finally figuring out how to adjust the bobbin tension. The sewing machine has been on our kitchen table since then. 

Did you know that  according to the BBC in 2017, Americans threw away more than 13 million metric tonnes of fabric?  Fabric is difficult to recycle, but it can be repurposed. This blog will explore how I am doing that.