Zero-waste sewing NHK

I found this video on by the Japanese TV station NHK about a woman who sews beautiful cloth and clothing out of scraps.

https://youtu.be/W_ZJXp5IAfg

If my life was different right now, I would love to visit her and learn more about her sewing.  

What I love most is that it's not just her sewing, but her full lifestyle that is zero waste.  

I was really struck by her use of baskets. Her studio looks like a wonderful place to work; full of light and, dare I say it, whimsy. Just beautiful.

What a neat person, and a truly lovely video! She's inspired me to go through my own scrap collections, and see what fun, unique things I might be able to make - and if they turn out nice (here's were beautiful!), that could be a perfect source for Christmas gifts, too.

They have a whole series on Zero Waste Life.  Here's the playlist:  https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFEzXnIQVwV9aBmTgSvkMX8d8RN1OQgPx  

I just watched the one of making "new" outfits out of worn out or damaged jeans. My son's girlfriend brought me 3 pairs of her old jeans with holes in embarrassing places. Now I'm thinking I could turn them into a jeans skirt for her for Christmas. I'm thinking I'd like to use embroidery cotton for some of the visible stitching. I've never done something like this, so it could get interesting!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MtSLOKdKGI

Jay Angler wrote:I just watched the one of making "new" outfits out of worn out or damaged jeans. My son's girlfriend brought me 3 pairs of her old jeans with holes in embarrassing places. Now I'm thinking I could turn them into a jeans skirt for her for Christmas. I'm thinking I'd like to use embroidery cotton for some of the visible stitching. I've never done something like this, so it could get interesting!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MtSLOKdKGI

This is right up my alley. I currently have 3 very different jeans skirts in my closet, and 2 or 3 more in various stages of progress, next to my sewing machine. They're my favorite skirts, and are worn more than anything else in my wardrobe - and they receive more compliments than anything else I wear, on any kind of regular basis. This summer, in the local hardware store, I met a worker there, and we chatted a bit, because she asked me about my skirt. At some point, I asked if she was new there, and she said no, she'd been there for years, but mostly worked in the back of the paint department, which was why I'd not seen her - but she'd seen me, and others there would let her know when I was in the store, so she could come out and see what cool thing I was wearing, that day! I was floored! I had no idea my outfits caused any kind of reaction, other than those compliments I'd received, much less that employees were spying on me, to see what I'd come in wearing, next! I'm sure she will really love them!

Jay Angler wrote:I just watched the one of making "new" outfits out of worn out or damaged jeans. My son's girlfriend brought me 3 pairs of her old jeans with holes in embarrassing places. Now I'm thinking I could turn them into a jeans skirt for her for Christmas. I'm thinking I'd like to use embroidery cotton for some of the visible stitching. I've never done something like this, so it could get interesting!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MtSLOKdKGI

Back in the 70's, I had a favorite pair of "windowpane" jeans that developed the same sorts of holes in embarrassing places.  I split the leg seams open, split the leg fabric again (resulting in slits in front, back and both sides of the skirt), filled the four slits with sewed in long gently sweeping (i.e., very slightly curved at the bottom) triangular plackets of denim from other jeans that were a darker color to give the bottom a mermaid-type flair, and used embroidery floss to create designs (compass roses of different colors) over the remaining edges of the damaged areas to disguise them.  The floor length skirt remained a favorite for many years, and brought an amazing price when I sold it as a vintage piece.  Love that you're planning to extend the life of these jeans!

Thanks for the video! I love that one point where it is explained she keeps these small pieces of fabric as they are memories. Now kind of wishing I had kept even a quarter of the scraps of fabric that have moved through my hands haha.

One other observation: she seems to be using 100% natural fibers - beautiful ones at that. Tiny pieces from polyester clothing today wouldn't hold up the way she is using the good stuff here for her pot holders and rags.

This video has inspired me to make use of the little scraps of material that I usually throw out as being "too small to do anything with". Using the sashiko type of embroidery to hold everything together means I need waste hardly anything. Thank you for posting it.

When we lived in a large city and my son worked at a major grocery distribution centre, he would collect and bring home all the plastic mesh bags that onions came in. Each bag would have held about 20 lbs of onions and normally would have gone into the garbage at the end of his shift.   I took them apart at the seams and then stitched them to each other like a big ugly patchwork quilt, using scraps of ribbon or old shoe laces, string or anything I had lying around. We had a garden out of town at the time which was continually being visited by deer and other animals. My goal was to create a cover cloth big enough to protect the entire garden.  It worked well because the holes were large enough to not block any rain or sunlight but were small enough to keep out deer or other critters that wanted to eat my veggies.  It was also brightly coloured and made of plastic which I imagine felt bad in their mouths if they tried to bite through it.  Used it for two years until it was blown away one day during a really bad storm.