Workshop #3: Jewelry

One of the great dilemmas of creating clothing is, "what do you do with all the scraps of fabric you produce?"

Many years ago I would have just thrown them out. But no longer.
Now, I save all my scraps and try to organize them by color and then see what fun ideas arise as to how to use them.

You can imagine after creating two collections and having a third on the way, how many scraps I have! A LOT!

So, we decided to play with them. The workshop was dedicated to creating jewelry and accessories that easily eat up those little bits of fabric.

It ended up that the way we created was very flow-of-conscious, grabbing colors that appealed to us and going with whatever fancied us. There was no set standard, so idea to emulate or copy. Whatever emerged, emerged. Sometimes it was a barrette, a neck-wrap, or a bracelet.

Because my office is so packed due to the big date coming up....we decided to work in the coffee break area of my office. And so as we are throwing around fabric, sewing, cutting with such delicious colors surrounding us all the other folks in the building would stop to watch. You could see their eyes light up and smiles grow. It probably brought back memories of the craft table at preschool (I know that is an image that came up for me). Good memories of more carefree times of silly creation. The office manager even suggested we do it every Friday! Maybe after the show....




Besides just jewelry making, we also helped Megan sandpaper the fabric for her little army jackets.

As I updated in my previous blog, we learned quickly how terrible it is to do this without a dust mask. Fibers from the fabric just fly everywhere. I got it up my nose and felt like I was suffocating.

It is a lovely effect, but as stated above, preferably do this outdoors with a mask. You'll be much happier for it.

What I personally find so rewarding about doing these workshops is the way our energy together inspires us to do things we never before imagined. A lot of the time it isn't even the product that is the most fruitful, rather the process of getting there sparks solutions for other garments that you were struggeling with. The process of relaxing the mind seems to feed the creativity tree, which allows for future bounty.