Zero Waste Fashion Archives - The Craft of Clothes

Zero waste patternmaking is going through a time of experimentation, both with actual patterns and how it can be applied to clothing manufacture. I’ve been experimenting with zero waste patterns for the past 4 years and been challenged, had fun, stretched my brain and found it unexpectedly freeing. Here are some of the discoveries and…

Making Danielle Elsener's zero waste scrub top

The free scrub pattern I did last week led me to Danielle Elsener of DECODECODECODE’s zero waste scrubs, and I thought I’d give them a go. I’m fascinated that two patternmakers living on opposite sides of the Earth both endeavoured to make zero waste scrubs, took very different approaches, and produced such different-looking patterns which…

If your supermarket is like ours, the shelves of feminine hygiene products are as bare as the toilet paper aisle (and the cleaning supplies, soap, meat, flour, tinned food, pasta…), with unknown date of re-supply. Lady readers, if you’re now at home all day, with possibly limited sanitary supplies, here’s an opportunity to give cloth…

We have passed the 100 day mark and now there’s only 96 days to go until Zero Waste Sewing is published. I thought I would talk about how I make a zero waste pattern and show you an example from the book. A zero waste pattern uses 100% of the fabric, with no scraps or…

On the weekend I finished my zero waste jeans, and here they are! Read about my research and the beginning of my quest, cutting out, and the start of sewing them. The sewing turned out to be fairly straight forward, much like sewing ordinary jeans. There were some unusual shapes which were tamed as I…

Zero waste jeans front knee patches sewn

Work is part way through the zero waste jeans project (last week I cut them out and the week before I did research and procrastinated). I’m happy with how things are going so far and I’m enjoying putting them together. I forgot to buy a zip so I’ve done everything possible before the fly front…

I’ve just cut out my first pair of zero waste jeans and the pieces are sitting here waiting to be sewn. Read my first post on this here. The jeans have all the details of regular jeans: 5 pockets, fly front, waistband and back yoke. The aim was to make a zero waste layout so…

An item which isn’t on my sewing bucket list (but should be) is to make a pair of zero waste jeans. What do I mean by zero waste jeans? I mean a pair of jeans cut using 100% of the fabric, with no scraps, offcuts or waste. The layout needs to fit neatly within the…

A wedding at Easter caused me to dig out a little brown suit I hadn’t worn in eleven years. I last wore it to my brother’s wedding in 2007. I was dismayed to discover, part way there in the car, a moth hole in the sleeve. Aaaargh! I tried not to let it distract me…

You can probably tell from the title of this post that I’m not finished with this suit yet. I’m still not satisfied with the sleeves, however I think I’m nearly there. (Read about how I acquired this suit here, and what I did last week here). An Instagram friend asked me if there was a…