Sustainable Tips Blog

One thing we do to stock our store is look through 1,000 lb bales of vintage t-shirts that have been sent to a rag house in Compton who will cut them into rags to be used for clean-up in the auto repair industry.  We are looking for shirts we can salvage - by washing and sometimes garment dying to save them from ending their garment lifecycle so soon.  Sometimes those shirts can't be saved or we will crop or cut them leaving behind fabric remnants.  Since our mission is zero waste we will try to use them in a rag rug.  It's a time consuming process but it's fun and requires no machine... just scissors and some safety pins. I used...

We found an awesome vintage Levi's jacket that had seen better days.  The back had many holes and there were some dark oil looking stains.  The denim around the holes was in great condition making this the perfect style for some denim sashiko mending. For this project I chose to use some denim scraps and a patch drawn by our friend Fos that says "Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds".  I used Olympus Sashiko thread and needles (made in Japan and available in the store). First thing I did was trim the loose threads from the holes.  And then using my thread and needle I did rows of stitching for a basic Sashiko.  The finished product covers all holes and...

Sashiko was developed as a resourceful way of extending the life of garments in rural Japan.  There are traditional ways of doing it - but the concept is this... Hand quilting patches or scraps of fabric over holes, stains, abrasions (and today maybe even to cover an occational corporate logo)  Imperfections are welcome and patches can be hand made, decorated or just scraps of fabric.  Your new patch will weaken the fabric around the patch so eventually it will strain the fabric and you will need to add more patches.. and your garment story telling begins!