Why do I use production offcuts in my sewing? Certainly not because it is cheaper.
From production offcuts to a finished product is a long and time consuming road, beginning with obtaining suitable materials and going on to creating new models and completing a distinctive, original product.
But combining something splendid from exactly such given materials is what is exciting, and for me that is the right and lovely challenge. And in general it is such a good feeling to give new life to entirely new and sound materials that are destined for destruction, for the tip, for waste.
Can you imagine how much material goes into waste at even one large manufacturer EVERY DAY, that is, to be thrown away. For some it is by the container, for others it accumulates in enormous hangars because disposal is expensive, and some simply bury it in secret...
For instance, I bring home a pile of pieces of upholstery leather, fabric or artificial leather, sort them into stacks by colour, and with every colour and material ideas already flash before my eyes about what would be lovely to combine them with and what an inspiring result would be. Perhaps some sweet little bag for a small girl, a seat cushion with a splendid pattern, a rucksack and so on. Not all ideas can or will be realised; some wait their turn for years, but the inspiration is great and that is what matters.
It is simpler, quicker and also cheaper to buy suitable materials from a catalogue for a product designed in advance, sew a decent quantity of identical products and take them to the shops. But for me that is boring. To order from a catalogue, the quantities of identical material have to be very, very large. I do not want to do that kind of mass production; I would rather stay with handcraft.
The most complicated and time consuming part of using reclaimed materials is finding the additions in matching tones and sizes for each material: zips and zip pulls, ribbons, bindings, straps, rivets, loops, snap hooks, eyelets, handles, special threads and so on.
Take zips, for example... From a catalogue you could order 1000 m of zip in each colour and matching pulls in similar quantities. You order and it is that simple. BUT... I do not need 1000 m of zip at once (24 different colours would already make 24000 m). If I get, say, 30 m of pink zip from one seller (that lasts me about a year), then I have to find the pulls from a second or a third, and so on with every colour and size of zip. I go round the suppliers with pieces of fabric in my pocket: 30 m of pale green zip is available, but they no longer have pulls and will not order more... Snap hooks are needed 20 mm wide for one model, 1.7 mm for another, 30 mm for a third. And then it turns out that there is material for the mustard yellow bag but no zip to be had; and when I get the zip, pulls in that colour are no longer available (or they are another maker's and do not fit that zip, or they are a different size and so on). That kind of combining, day after day.
Visit my web shop and you will see what exciting things can be done with materials that mass production has condemned to destruction, that is to nature.
www.mailisepood.ee
