As most of us do in early January, we started off 2023 by making a list of things we could *do better* this year. One of our resolutions is to further our commitment to the environment and the future of our planet by decreasing our carbon footprint. Here's how we're doing it:
We will continue on our zero-fabric-waste mission and will undoubtedly find some fun ways to use up our scrap in the coming year. You can read more about the ways we use up our offcuts HERE, and see all items that we make from our scraps and deadstock HERE.
]]>We are going to make a sandwich. Set your foam down directly under the light, then place the black bristol board or fabric on top. Now place your screen on top of this and tape your transparency to the screen. Complete the sandwich with the glass. Set your timer to the correct time, there is usually a guide that will come with your emulsion - follow those instructions! (We use a 400 watt bulb at 6.5 minutes and previously we used a 250 w bulb for 14 minutes.)
When the time is up, turn your light off, set aside the glass and the art work. You will notice an image of your design on the screen - yay!!
Washing your Screen:
Take your screen over to the sink and spray both sides of your screen with water, it's safe to work in full light now. Let it sit for 30 seconds.
Hose your screen down to wash away the emulsion where your art work was. This can take anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes. Don't be afraid to use the pads of your fingers to help it along, but don't over do it. Hold your screen up to the light and make sure all your emulsion is washed away where your design is.
Let your screen dry completely.
Now all your hard work has paid off and you are ready to print!
Stay tuned for our next post in this series... and to see what we make with our new Sloth screen :)
]]>We've always been careful to squeeze as much as we can out of a bolt of fabric and Trish's thrifty nature means we've embraced creative re-use from the very early days of Smoking Lily... However, in 2016 our studio made the commitment to become 100% zero-fabric-waste, and that means we haven't thrown away even the smallest scrap that has come though our production in 6 years!
This might not sound so remarkable if you haven't worked in fashion production before (oh, do you want to? we are hiring!), but hear this: globally, approximately 15% of fabric intended for clothing ends up on the cutting room floor. This is the fabric that was damaged or defective, the bits of fabric leftover from cutting out a pattern, the selvedges (edges of a bolt of fabric), etc. In much of fashion production, this 15% goes to the landfill... but not at SL HQ. Oh no, we use it ALL.
Through lots of hard work and innovation we have found ways (oh, so many ways...) of using up our fabric scraps, and it starts right at the very beginning, when we design a pattern.
Pattern pieces are sometimes modified so that they "puzzle" together on a bolt of fabric with as little waste as possible. This is why some items have seams up the back (like our Ina tops, for example). By taking a part of the pattern that could have been a single piece of fabric and turning it into two, we cut down on the overall "waste" (or more accurately in our case, leftover fabric!), that a pattern creates.
Before we begin to cut out a pattern, we trim off the selvedges in long strips. The selvedges are the edges of a bolt of fabric and may have small pin-holes, threads hanging out, or in the case of woven fabric, are finished with another colour or pattern. This is unavoidable "waste" as this fabric is not consistent with the rest of the bolt. Instead of tossing it, we roll it into balls of Salvage Yarn. This is used by our customers to make everything from braided rugs to woven baskets, wall-hangings to chunky crochet project bags.
Of course, there will always be some leftover fabric in between pattern pieces so we've developed new products to use up these bits. Our Kids line is made up entirely from our jersey scraps, as are our Zero-Waste Underlovelies, OOAK Cropped Fundra's and many of our accessories (Wrist Warmers, Headbands, Slouchy Hats).
With our woven scrap we make Placemats, Sleep Masks, Scrunchies, Cocktail Napkins, Quilts, One-of-a-Kind Saskia Tops and our new Homeward Bound Tops. We also make Craft Kits, so you can have your turn at making something beautiful with our special pieces!
Anything that's too small to be sewn into something new is used as stuffing for meditation cushions, Kid's Hassacs (floor pillows) and soft sculptures. You can find these items in our store - we don't put them online as they are really heavy!
It is a lot of effort to keep our zero-fabric-waste commitment, but we think it's worth it. In our first full year of working this way (2017), we ran the numbers and realized we had saved the equivalent of a whopping 2145 meters of fabric from the landfill. By the end of this year I'd estimate that we'll have saved over 15,000 meters since 2016.
We can work this way because we do everything in-house which makes us aware and accountable for our waste. We see the waste being created and we work amongst it until it finds a purpose. Now that we know the potential for every little bit, it's second-nature for us to save, reuse and think of new ways to re-purpose our scraps. I don't think we could imagine working another way!
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Here are a few other ways we keep our studio as friendly to the environment and people as possible:
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Looking for some zero-waste resources?
Some local businesses diverting fabric from the landfill:
More about fabric waste and environmental impacts from fashion production:
Have another resource to add? Contact us and we'll keep updating as needed.
The sixth of 7 children, Trish always wanted to be a fashion designer and spent her early years watching her mom sew bridesmaid dresses for the neighbourhood gals. These formative bridezilla experiences made Trish never want to get married, and by 17 she had flown the coop and was off to see the world- first to Saskatchewan, and then to Amsterdam and all over Canada, finally settling in Victoria.
1996: young, determined, and a little short on rent, Trish whipped up some silk-screened silk scarves to sell at a local market. (Do you have one of these rare pieces? Trish still wears hers.) They were a hit... and the rest is history!
Here are a few of her favourite things:
Trish hates and fears silverfish, the though of being buried alive, and creepy snakes: "I think they are beautiful and quite remarkable little creatures but they can just Fuck Off and stay away from me.
Hey Trish, what's your most marked characteristic? (Now we're getting all Proust Questionnaire-y) "Physically? it must be my lovely nose. Personality? it would be my sarcasm probably. You can take the girl out of Southern Ontario but her bad sense of humour will follower wherever she goes."
A few Trish recommendations:
To read: Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
"It's so good, I highly recommend it. It's set in the near future, when the seas have been over-fished and the birds are nearly extinct. It's a cautionary tale about climate change with a cast of interesting characters. Great story telling."
To podcast: "I listen to podcasts a lot. Right now on heavy rotation is Stuff You Should Know and Ologies to fill my brain with interesting bits of knowledge. That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast for a healthy amount of trash. I love 4 or 6 part series on investigative journalism. I love plant podcasts and On the Ledge with Jane Perrone is one of my favourites. And the for my pop I love The Q Interview with Tom Power, he really is one on the best interviewers."
To binge-watch: "Midsomer Murders - the best! Vera - runner up."
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Email resume and cover letter to info@smokinglily.com
]]>We've had a wonderfully busy summer in the studio, making many many favourites both new (Rotator and Lothlorien Dresses, Good Shorts and Pants!) and old (Saskia Tops, Kapow Dresses, Ima Tanks, Simple Tees... and on and on...). With all of this production comes a lot of "waste": offcuts, scrap and print samples. Here's what we've been doing with it: USING IT UP!
We have been zero-textile-waste for about 5 years now, made possible through a combination of intentional design, re-use, and the creation of new products to use up excess material. And we found some extra ways of sticking to that mission this summer.
When we design we are always conscious of how we will lay-out pattern pieces so that they fit together to create the least amount of textile waste. As we cut the pattern out, we first cut off the selvedges (raw fabric edges), creating long, thin strips that we wind into balls of Salvage Yarn.
Our customers use this "yarn" for everything from rug weaving to crochet, gift ribbons to pretty special garden twine! We usually sell it only in our Victoria store but just had our first Salvage Yarn sale on Instagram in a looong time. We'll do it again - stay tuned!
Anything too small to be used for a pattern is usually used as stuffing for floor and meditation cushions and soft sculptures. (These can be found in our Victoria shop only, as they weigh a ton, making shipping astronomical.) Several times a year we also make up quilt or patch kits with our fun silk-screened and patterned leftovers.
This summer though, we were completely overwhelmed with how much scrap we had created, and some of it was so fun - tons of pattern, lots of linen... bags upon bags of the stuff! So we decided to give back to our wonderful teachers, sending out free 5kg boxes of scrap fabric (along with some juicy larger bits and balls of yarn, leather, ribbon...) all across Canada.
Going into fall, we are keeping our mission of being a zero-fabric-waste company front of mind... and we've already come up with a few new ideas! (hint - it involves our very special printing table canvas.)
Can't wait to show you what we come up with...
-Lucy
]]>Cue a few days of freaking out and trying to find a way to revive it (turns out that's next to impossible...) and we decided that we were just going to cut our losses and move on! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
...but here we are today, reviving the old gal. Why? Well, there's a lot going on in the studio day to day, and we think it's pretty cool! The way we design, our commitment to zero-fabric-waste, the fact that everything happens really fast in one studio in Victoria, BC with a little staff of 8(ish) - this is what Smoking Lily is and we want you to know more about it.
So without further ado, welcome back, blog!
-Lucy
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