Sustainable / Recycle

Respectfully Recycled Denim

An up-cycled, patchwork denim dress, playful, yet grown up, ready for whatever comes our way.

Recycling and sustainability stitched into one, a maxi denim dress. Using a vintage ball gown pattern, and indigo dyed, recycled denim fabrics found @capecodshibori, the dress comes into full swing. Laying out the recycled denim pieces was the fun part. There were even two pieces in one order that had the original pockets attached. I used those purposefully on the back of the dress. 

I have loved the look of a puffy blouse underneath a gown, and this did the trick for me.

The belt is from @zanabayne, www.zanabayne.com - a post-fetish leather brand with many accessories. 

The shoes were brought to my attention by the ever-clever, brilliant NYC and beyond stylist, @caroldavidsonlifestylestrategy, www.CarolDavidson.com. Her magic to find the most wonderful pieces just for you is, well, magical. They have height with comfort. And come with two different ankle strap options, silk ribbons and leather buckled straps. Found these beauties on Zappos.com

Red Work

Red work, that’s what I’m calling this recycled muslin, original draped dress. Red work was used in the late 1800's thru early 1900's to practice embroidery stitches. Using scraps from all the muslin I plow thru when testing a new pattern. I simply stitched them all together with red thread. I used my serger to do all the stitching. 

I just began stitching snippets of muslin, some pieces as small as 3", up to larger pieces. Once I had a nice hunk of stitched fabric, I would take it to the mannequin and play with the drape. You could make yards and yards of this fabric, and just lay your favorite flat pattern and cut and sew. The top portion of the dress was a bodice I tested for another pattern. I figured it would be easier to just drape from that. Plus the bodice didn't go to waste.

I had a stash of small red buttons. So on the ruffle at the neck, and a few on the sleeve, and hem edge, I added a few here and there.

The cropped jacket I used a pattern from Tina Givens, @sewtinagivens. The circus fabric I'd had in my stash for years, and lined it with a checked silk dupioni.

Plastic Bag Ensemble

The entire ensemble is created from plastic bags, although I did add two zippers. Using a teflon foot on your machine is helpful. And a longer stitch length, so there aren’t so many needle punctures, so the plastic doesn’t tear after all that stitching.

The waist on my top needed to be gathered. The top of the trash bag had the perfect solution, the drawstring you use to secure the full bag. To help make the sleeves stay puffed up, I filled them with scraps of the trash bags left over from cutting the patterns out. Using strips of the bags, I crochet a little choker. The muff is also a vintage pattern, again, using the red drawstring at the top of these bags for the handle.

The food can label apron I had created in 1997. It seemed to work for this project of sustainable and landfill issues. I had collected food labels for years. Literally 100’s of hexagons were stitched together to create the base of the apron. The neck strap is created using the labels where I made paper beads. Then I cut tiny hexagons, still using the food labels and created the take out food box. Ensemble is titled “You Are What You Eat.” The costume eyewear is from @sydneybelladonna