Category: Project Weekly

For this quarter’s SOS project: Sustainability in Textile Production and Clothing Design, I decided to put the theorizing I did about sustainability in fashion during last quarter into action. Over the past 10 weeks, I have had the opportunity to experience textile and clothing production in three different areas: a full scale wool mill, flax production, and upcycling as well as to continue to broaden my understanding of the science and mechanics behind each method.

My internship with Olympic Yarn and Fiber consisted of many great learning experiences for me. I began the quarter with little to no experience working mill equipment, but Lynn, the owner and operator of the mill has been so incredibly helpful in teaching me the ins and outs of working with machinery. I now understand each of the steps in the yarn production process thoroughly and am able to work the basics of most of the equipment without supervision. In addition to the mill work, I was able to learn about fiber dying (both natural & synthetics) as well as basic animal husbandry concepts for alpaca care. In my personal studies, I was able to begin to explore the energy usage of mills and how that relates to fossil fuel consumption. To supplement these activities I read materials including titles such as Fibre Production in South American Camelids and Other Fibre Animals, the Alpaca Handbook, a Mechanistic Model of Energy Consumption in Milling, etc.

At the beginning of the quarter, I sowed 0.5lbs of flaxseed (Agatha variety from Fibrevolution) in a 10 x 5 foot bed and have been tracking the growth since. My intention in growing the flax is to eventually produce a sample of linen. Over the course of the quarter I was able to track the growth and resource usage of cultivating fiber flax. It has been really helpful for me to see the fiber process through from plant to fabric. I have really only begun this process since my flax to linen project will be continuing into the summer, but I have used to time to read up on the crop through the Flax Council of Canada’s growing guide and have familiarized myself with the conditions necessary to help them thrive. Reading about flax has also helped me to learn about the crops impact on a larger scale.

Finally, the upcycling portion of my project proved to be the most rewarding so far. I was able to learn quite a lot about approaching design from a sustainability standpoint through reading books like Refashioned and Zero-waste Fashion Design in order to help me design my own completely upcycled pieces. The goal of this portion was to “slow down” the fashion process and practice mindfulness in every step of my design process, and I am incredibly happy with the finished results. I was able to successfully finished designing and altering a raw silk corset-ed vest as well as a sun dress inspired by antique Edwardian underdresses. For both of these pieces I used entirely recycled materials. I am incredibly pleased with the final products, both from a sustainability perspective and from an aesthetic one. I did not have much experience with upcycling in the past, at least upcycling for a purpose, so I’ve learned a lot about pattern drafting and how to use as much fabric as possible in order to save resources and money.

This quarter I chose to dive into three different areas that I had limited experience with previously and I am thrilled to look back and see how my understanding has broadened in such a short amount of tim

Because I was out of town for weeks 9 & 10, I got about as much work done as I would have for one week, so I’ve condensed the two into one weekly post. The focus for these two weeks was all in finalizing my work for this quarter and beginning to look forward to the next.

I started the week by giving my final presentation for class on Tuesday. Overall, I am happy with the conclusions I came to and the final products of all of the different aspects of my project. It’s pretty easy to watch the quarter fly by and feel like you’re not actually accomplishing that much. So, I like to use the final presentation as a way to look back on all the work I have done over the past 10 weeks so that I can begin formulating final conclusions for my ePortfolio. The link to the presentation can be found here. I also used the week to go about reviewing my WordPress site.

After I finished the presentation, I dedicated the rest of my research to looking at flax processing and preparing for finishing off my flax to linen project over the summer. I learned that there are multiple different methods of processing the flax – some more labor intensive than others – that can impact the time it takes to create a finished product. In order to get an idea of the timeframe of my own flax cultivation and processing I mapped out the methods that I will use and the expected time to complete that which can be found here.

This past week, my main priority was to come to a halt with the research for a bit so that I could create my final presentation. I am out of town for week 10, so I had to give my presentation a week early. This required me to stop before my contract is officially over so that I could condense my work into a 10 – 15 slide powerpoint. As usual, it was a difficult feat to put all of the learning that I did this past quarter into a 10 minute presentation. But, I was able to successfully complete the presentation by the time the week was over!

Other than that, I did a lot of thinking on my final conclusions regarding business models based around upcycling and how that relates to what I read in Shaping Sustainable Fashion about underpricing encouraging overconsumption. The more I think about it, the more I really do believe that it is important to charge more than fast fashion companies for original designs. I do think that there is a middle ground, but I now understand trying to fight the fast fashion industry with the same methods it used to create the mess we’re in now is not the way to go about initiating a change in mentality when it comes to fashion.

Other than that, I completed my internship with Olympic Yarn & Fiber (post here) and continued to monitor my flax. As far as the fiber farming goes, I am super happy to see that most of the flax is taking off now that the weather has warmed up quite a bit (regular watering also seems to have something to do with it.)  Now that the quarter is winding down, I plan to shift my sights to preparing for the flax harvest and processing!

I was thrown into this week with a little scare regarding my flax which I detailed in a post that can be found here. Looking back, I really should have taken the time to grab a soil sample and get it tested so that I could understand exactly what went wrong, but I guess hindsight is 20/20. Once the flax is better established, it should be smooth sailing, so I am looking forward to being able to watch it continue to grow to maturity!

I also picked up a book titled Shaping Sustainable Fashion by Alison Gwilt and Timo Rissanen that has been awesome for comprehending other sustainable models. The book contains a series of case studies of other artists and designers that aim for sustainability in their business. Something that was helpful for me to understand is the way the authors described modernized, synthetic fabrics. They believe that synthetic does not equal evil. Instead, the intentions behind the creation of said synthetics were not based off of sustainability, rather profitability, and that is the true reason why the synthetics on the market have proven to be so damaging.

Similarly, the book goes to describe how to design process is responsible for a lot of the environmental and human rights violations because it is not flexible in its essence. Instead, the authors advocate for a holistic approach to design – one that uses sustainability as part of the design process. This was exciting for me to read because it is exactly the conclusion that I came to during my last ILC and is what I have been trying to implement in my own upcycling projects. One case study in particular resonated with me. It was titled “the Tailor’s Craft” and describes how a close personal relationship between the designer/craftsperson and the consumer is a great recipe for flexibility and accountability. The case study suggests a business where a tailor designs clothing specially for one customer at a time, consulting with them through out the process. The unique design and hand-sewn nature of the garment makes the price a bit steeper but allows for the garment to last longer, encouraging less over-consumption of textiles.

The concept of over-consumption due to price was also really helpful for me to read about. This combined with the tailoring model reminds me of something I read about in The Sustainable Fashion Company where a study showed that consumers are likely to spend more if they have the option to have a say in the design process. But, instead of online tweaking and pre-selected choices, with this model customers actually have many more options and overall a larger role to play.

I think without realizing it, this is the model I had been at least somewhat using while designer for myself. I would tweak a garment, use whatever resources were available, tweak it again if it didn’t suit my taste, and so on and so forth. This has allowed me to know exactly the amount of work and resources put into each of the alterations that I have made. I believe this could turn out to be a great alternative option for clothing in communities. There are, like with anything, hurdles to jump in order to educate potential customers, but I believe this is one of many ways to start moving away from the fast fashion industry.

This week’s most notable accomplishment was my focusing in on filling the gaps of my knowledge about the flax that I am growing on the farm. To do so, I did some research into the botany of flax and created a plant profile for the crop. While doing so, I am really pleased to have potentially troubleshooted the germination issues that I had. For further reading on that, you can find a post about it here.

Something that caught my attention while reading about flax is that it is best not to grow the crop successively due to soil born diseases that can occur when the same nutrients are consistently drained for the soil. This isn’t a particularly surprising concept to me given that most mono-cropping practices tend to yield the same result without heavy fertilization. However, because flax is a textile crop rather than a food crop it does make it a bit of a challenge to work out productivity of growing the one crop for the purpose of textiles while utilizing the land correctly. I definitely had considered this to be a possibility before planting my own flax, which is why I intend to compare the soil test that the POF class took of the management unit it is planted in with a soil test I do of the bed once the flax has been harvested. In the next week I am also going to be researching small flax farmers and millers to see how they combat that difficulty. Overall, I am finding there to be very few small-scale flax farms. So, it will be interesting to see what information I can get from those few who do run that particular operation.

Aside from that, I am still plucking away at the dress I am upcycling and am finding the lace-up top to be a tiny bit time consuming. This is mainly due to the fact that I am hand-sewing grommets onto it for the real historic effect. Once that portion of the dress is finished I am hoping the rest of the ideas I have for the design go relatively quickly to keep labor time down to a minimum.

I also read a study called “Embodied Multi-Discursivity: An Aesthetic Process Approach to Sustainable Entrepreneurship” by Kim Poldner, Paul Shrivastava, and Oana Branzei that has been really helpful for me in putting the mission of sustainable design into words. The study argues that sustainable entrepreneurship, in essence, is a much more emotional venture than a lot of other different business models. In fact, the emotions of the creator of a “sustain-ably constructed” product is often transferred over to the consumer in the form of education and explanation of design. Because the venture is more emotional, oftentimes entrepreneurs can get away with charging slightly higher prices than other products.

The authors also argue that this is very much a visual aspect of the design process and is an advantage for the business person and designer. In fact, they state that the choices the sustainable designer makes to create a product become an art in itself that can be expressed visually in the product, and become part of the portfolio of the business as a whole. I believe this hold particularly true to what I am attempting to do with upcycling, and I am really hoping to be able to express those choices through my own finished product.

For this quarter’s SOS project: Sustainability in Textile Production and Clothing Design, I decided to put the theorizing of last quarter into action. Last quarter, I spent ten weeks researching the history and current practices of textile crafts in an attempt to get a better understanding of how to improve the current model. Over the past five weeks, I have had the opportunity to experience textile and clothing production in three different areas: a full scale wool mill, flax production, and upcycling as well as to continue to broaden my understanding of the science and mechanics behind each method.

My internship with Olympic Yarn and Fiber has really only just begun, largely due to the fact that my supervisor and I have both been out of town for two consecutive weekends. However, the two weekends that I have been able to intern at the mill and alpaca farm have been great learning experiences for me. I began the quarter with little to no experience working mill equipment, but Lynn has been so incredibly helpful in teaching me the ins and outs of working with machinery. I now understand each of the steps in the yarn production process thoroughly and am able to work some of the more simple equipment without supervision. Over the next five weeks I am continuing to intern there, and hope to be able to expand my skills in the fiber mill even further. I am also starting to explore the energy usage of mills and how that relates to fossil fuel consumption, so I plan to continue to dive into that during the rest of the quarter. I have also read a good deal of Fibre Production in South American Camelids and Other Fibre Animals and have learned more about the different kinds of alpaca and how their health and the care given to them affects their wool production.

At the beginning of the quarter, I sowed 0.5lbs of flaxseed (Agatha variety from Fibrevolution) in a 10 x 5 foot bed and have been tracking the growth since. My intention in growing the flax is to eventually produce a sample of linen, but currently the process is relatively hands off since there is not much work required to cultivate that particular crop. It has been really helpful for me to see the fiber process through from plant to fabric and to be able to track each of the resources used every step of the way. I have really only begun this process since my flax to linen project will be continuing into the summer, but I have used to time to read up on the crop through the Flax Council of Canada’s growing guide and have familiarized myself with the conditions necessary to help them thrive. Reading about flax has also helped me to learn about the crops impact on a larger scale.

Finally, the upcycling portion of my project has proven to be the most rewarding so far. I have spent the first five weeks of this quarter reading books like Refashioned and Zero-waste Fashion Design in order to help me design my own completely upcycled outfit. Last week, I successfully finished the first and main piece of my larger design; a raw silk corset-ed vest. I am incredibly pleased with the final product, both from a ‘work required’ perspective and from an aesthetic one. I did not have much experience with upcycling in the past, at least upcycling for a purpose, so I’ve learned a lot about pattern drafting and how to use as much fabric as possible in order to save resources and money.

This quarter I chose to dive into three different areas that I had limited experience with previously and I am thrilled to look back and see how my understanding has broadened in such a short amount of time. In the next five weeks, I hope to have a completed upcycled outfit, flax that is continuing to thrive, and to have learned the basic mechanics of all the fiber mill equipment as well as gained a better idea of how their energy usage affects sustainability in terms of its impact on the planet, the people who inhabit it, and if it is possible to make a steady income off of it. 

This past week has almost been entirely research based due to the fact that I was out of town and had to rely on books to keep me on task. It was a welcome change from the norm, though, because I was able to really dive into energy consumption and get an understanding of how much mills use and what that means converted into fossil fuels.

Unfortunately, what I found was a bit discouraging. I have definitely come to the realization that the only way to create affordable and ethically made products for the demand that the market currently sees is to mill – preferably milling on a small scale. What I found about the amount of fuel it takes to run a mill, however, was a bit staggering. I kept reading that fiber mills consumed huge levels of energy, but my understanding of how energy works was limited. Luckily, while researching, I found an article titled “What Is the Energy Profile of the Textile Industry?” that put the information into layman’s terms for me. What I found is that nearly all energy is created using fossil fuels, whether that is to create heat in order to power thermal energy or to convert straight into electricity.

This new information inspired me to look at mills that use alternative forms of energy. I began wondering if there are any solar powered fiber mills, and lo and behold! I found a solar powered mill for alpaca fiber called Shenandoah Fiber. This mill is located in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, which, happens to be where I grew up and where I am visiting at the end of the month for a family wedding. So, I am planning to get in touch with the owners to try and schedule a tour. Before then, I’d also like to try and get a basic understanding of how solar-powered facilities operate.

Aside from my research into energy consumption, I also completed my silk vest! Since this is the main piece, it has been by far the most detailed and time consuming. I’m hoping to have purchased the next two garments within the week and begun the final steps of the construction process so that I can style and photograph the finished look in time for week 10.

 

This week I was finally able to sit down and complete some of the research portion of my contract now that all of the logistics are sorted and the quarter is in full swing. I’ve been reading “The Responsible Fashion Company” by Francesca Romano Rinaldi and Salvo Testa and it has proved to be super useful from a business point of view. The beginning of the book is entirely dedicated to economic ideas that also incorporate social and environmental concerns. It’s been really refreshing to be able to read a book that is pretty academic in nature but also focuses on things other than science and profit. In fact, one of my favorite concepts of the book so far is that the authors consider fostering the wellbeing of society and the planet as part of the “net income” of an enterprise, which I think is incredibly inspiring. It’s been helpful to me to be able to see all of the ideas that I’ve had about how a business should be run put into actual academic models and I’m looking forward to continuing to be inspired by them as I explore different ways to create beautiful clothing.

I also began to look at more ‘high end’ fashion and how it can be made sustainably on a small scale. I explored this through reading the book “Refashioned” which features a few high fashion designers that created their pieces through completely repurposed materials. The book didn’t cover how expensive these upcycled pieces end up being – which doesn’t quite make sense to me because if they are using discarded items from ‘the 99%’ and only marketing to ‘the 1%’ how much materials are they really saving, and is it really truly sustainable on all levels? Even so, I began playing on this idea by adding elements to my upcycled design that aren’t necessarily integral to the design but are detailing that add the extra artistry that allows for a higher price.

I am out of town this week and Lynn will be out of town the next, so I have a bit of a break from my internship with Olympic Yarn and Fiber. I’m sad that I won’t be back next week, but I plan to use the extra time to begin reading up on mill equipment and how it relates to energy consumption and sustainability.

This week all of the pieces of my project started getting moving. I’m actually pretty shocked at how quickly everything started to get moving and am happy with how much progress I was able to make in only a week’s time.

At the beginning of the week, I was able to prep my 5’x10′ bed and get the flax seeds into the ground. I originally used the flame weeder to try to eradicate the weeds, but I quickly realized that it was an unnecessary use of propane. In my case, I could easily pull up all the weeds on such a small plot of land, and I have a hunch that large scale flax growing could benefit easily from simply tarp-ing the fields before sowing. Since flax can be grown like you would a cover crop, it really doesn’t require that much weed management other than in the first few days of germination – it will eventually crowd all the weeds out. I also found that I was right to not plan for irrigation in this climate. It has rained quite a lot more than the 1″ per week that flax needs for germination, so no extra water usage was necessary. The seeds are going to take roughly 10 days to germinate, so I am keeping a close eye on the bed during that time period to make sure everything goes smoothly.

I also made a great deal of progress on my upcycling project. I successfully used the textile I have available to me to alter the silk vest in a way that I believe makes it much more aesthetically appealing and flattering. I don’t have a sewing machine with me here in Washington state, but even with hand-sewing, I’m finding that it really doesn’t take too much work to change a garment pretty radically. An interesting aspect of upcycling I’ve come to realize in the past week is that there are different levels of intricacy that you can achieve, just like with any other form of art. I’ve gotten a bit sidetracked with embroidering the back, which, if I were doing this as a business endeavor, would jack up the price of the garment. But, the more simple alterations I’ve made haven’t required too much labor or any extra money at all. This gave me an idea of how I plan to analyze my upcycled pieces. When I am finished with all the pieces that I am able to accomplish over the quarter, instead of estimating a price for the entire garment, I am going to estimate the price for each of the alterations done and what the impact of resources used adds up to.

The final activity for this week was my internship at Olympic Yarn and Fiber. I’ve already detailed the activities that I was able to take part in here. But, aside from having lots of fun learning how to use expensive textile equipment, I realized that I actually don’t have any clue about the resources that go into using the different pieces of equipment that create products at such a fast rate. It struck me that for literally each step of the process, there is a separate, huge machine to complete the task. I don’t actually know very much about energy usage and how that impacts sustainability in production processes, so my goal for next week (and probably the following weeks) is to get a more solid understanding of each of the pieces of equipment that I encounter.

As with most Week 1’s for independent projects, this week was centered around formulating and finalizing a plan for this quarter’s SOS. I am intending this quarter to be much more hands-on and less researched based than the last quarter. So, I set about solidifying all of the different sectors of my work.

First, I began to plan for my independent upcycling project. I recently sourced a used, raw silk vest that is a lovely herringbone tweed and I am intending on using that as my first design. I have been reading different books on design and repurposing fabric to gain some inspiration on different ways to make a somewhat boring piece of clothing into something beautiful and unique. Tweed is actually a pretty commonly upcycled textile, since it adds a good deal of character to any more bland colors. I am, however, particularly pleased with the particular textile that I found since I believe it is a pretty special piece of cloth. The vest is 100% raw silk, something that is notably difficult to source nowadays. The herringbone pattern is very muted, it doesn’t scream ‘tweed,’ rather, adds texture to the garment on first glance. The way raw silk falls is effortless, allowing for a good deal of grace when it comes to alterations, so I am excited to see what I can do with it. As I was looking into design ideas for brown herringbone, I came across a lot of upcycled lace combinations and was originally inspired by that. But, as I started to consider my own taste and design style, I have come to decide that I’d like to keep the piece as simple as possible since the textile speaks so loudly. I plan to alter the shape of the garment to be more fitted, remove the collar, and change out the fastenings. If I feel it is lacking in its own originality, I may add a touch of lace or perhaps some embroidery. But, I do think there is a beauty in keeping the design simple and the hours of labor on the lower end. This, in theory, allows for a beautiful garment to be created at a low cost to both the maker and the buyer. Photos and more detailed explanations on this process can be found under my ‘upcycling’ category on this ePortfolio.

I also completed my first day interning at Olympic Yarn & Fiber and learned about safe alpaca handling, nail trimming, and fleece sourcing. More details about that particular portion of my study can be found in the ‘internship’ category.