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