When It’s Sew Much
Only the sewing part is easy
In this month’s issue, it’s all about sewing. (Yay!) And planning. And designing.
Sewing projects are never solely about sewing, after all. This issue addresses the most frequently asked question: “Mira, what have you been up to?”
I’m excited that the answer expands itself to this issue. Lots of pictures, perhaps the most I’ve shared in a newsletter issue yet. (Fair warning, though: there’s so much fun to unpack, your email inbox may truncate it.) I hope you have a great time reading it, and feeling inspired when you finish reading!
Here are the topics for this month:
Save the Date: Upcoming In-Person Showcase in Oakland on October 21, 2023
Zero Waste Design, Part 2: Exploring garment prototype options
Save the Date: Upcoming In-Person Showcase
Let me start with the big news: I’m going to have my first ever showcase as a textile upcycling artist in a few months! If you are in the Bay Area (especially East Bay), please mark your calendar: Saturday, October 21, 2023, tentatively set from 3 to 8pm.
The venue was recently confirmed: The Dome in Oakland. A very special performance space with a long-term history that supports creative endeavors, I’m tremendously happy to have this opportunity to showcase my works as Climate Creative’s Artist in Residence 2023. This showcase will be a follow-up to last year’s virtual Textile Arts exhibition in Climate Gallery and Artist Talk.
What to expect
My vision for this in-person showcase is to have rotating crafting workshops for the afternoon, and flamenco dance performances in the early evening.
Acts around textile repurposing and upcycling will be front and center - I will be having new presentations around Gathered Cloths and crowd favorite Pink Cage Dress.
Moreover, I’m working on materializing one of the “Future Makes” concept I shared a while ago. The second garment from the left gets much love on Instagram, and it would be so cool to make it come true. All in all, there’s so much sewing to be done for this event!
For the evening, there will be 4-5 flamenco dancers. I expect to have a hand in their costumes as well - whether it be a repair, a refashion work (i.e. deconstructing an existing garment and redesign the silhouette), or a brand new costume work. We’ll see. It’s going to be sew much fun :)
Interested in volunteering, or giving workshops / short presentations around textile upcycling and sustainability issues in fashion?
Leave a comment, contact me at miramusank@gmail.com, or message me on Instagram @miramusank.
How to Stay Informed
Fafafoom newsletter subscribers will automatically get up-to-date announcements of this October showcase. Look out for a second newsletter on the second half of September for more details about the day’s schedule and where to purchase tickets.
So if you have yet to subscribe, now is a great time to do so!
Sew Delightful
It has a been a sewaholic’s month of making! I’m excited to share the fresh makes from the sewing studio.
Welcome back: a refashioned 3.1 Phillip Lim x Target dress
Last month, I started a refashioning project as a warm up for Fibershed’s zero waste design challenge. The refashioned item in a 3.1 Phillip Lim x Target dress purchased in 2013. The project was in progress as I started to elongate the hemline using a completely deconstructed top from the same collection.
Deconstructing the peplum top, cutting, and piecing them together as a hemline extension were fun. The peplum piece goes to the back in a straightforward manner, however figuring out smaller pieces to fill out the rest of the hemline was rather tricky. It was SO MUCH fun, though. It’s like this fabric pattern anticipates deconstruction and reconstruction.
The sewing part is definitely the easiest part, granted that I know how to stitch in the intended line (straight or curving) consistently and the machine is working normally.
After the new hemline is permanently attached to the dress, I spent some time inserting gussets to the armpit that’s too snug. By extension, I had to redo the sleeves as well. The diameter of the sleeves is increased by another inch. Naturally, all these inserts are made using leftover scraps of the peplum top. Once the seams are stitched, I finish them with topstitching for durability.
After the armpit and sleeve alterations are finished, there’s only one last thing to do: drop the neckline on the front by 0.5 inch. As I removed the collar piece to adjust the neckline curve, I found out it was too small to begin with and needed some extension. Thankfully, there’s still some scraps to add into the collar.
After everything is said and done, this refashioned dress is finished. It’s now ready to join the rest of my clothes in the wardrobe, and I plan to wear it often again. I’m looking forward to fall in love with it again. Welcome back, dear dress!
If you follow me on Mastodon by any chance, you’d already know about the status of this dress before reading this newsletter. Time and again, I make threads of my sewing progress and share them with the fediverse. I found a good small crowd that enjoys what I’m doing, and I also like doing it because proper blog post documentation isn’t something I can commit right now.
Fafafoom readers, you know the blog hasn’t been updated since last year. I have a backlog of blog posts to write, though. So I may skip making a long newsletter for a month and do a bunch of new posts for you to read by the end of the year!
I also said in the last newsletter that the amount of scraps left would fill out less than 5” x 5” area. Welp, I was off.
Even if I disregard the slivers of scraps on the bottom right area in the picture, the bigger scrap pieces would need at least 5” by 10” area. And that’s not counting the zipper from the peplum top, which I already saved for a future project.
I will most likely gather the slivers for stuffing materials and keep the bigger pieces for reinforcing stress areas (such as armpits). As I’m seeing the reborn 3.1 Phillip Lim x Target dress, I wonder how many similar garments and other items from the same collection are still in wardrobe rotation right now? It’s been 10 years since the collection came out. How many of them are in landfills somewhere?
Do you or someone you know still have a 3.1 Phillip Lim x Target garment?
Leave a comment or let me know! I’m curious if how many of them are still out there in wardrobe circulation, and not listed on a secondhand clothing trading platform somewhere.
Copied over: Striped denim biking cap
You know the feeling when you like a clothing item so much, you wished you bought several? That’s not what my husband feels about his biking cap that’s now discontinued. Why? Simple - he has a cheat code: me.
I was given some beautiful striped denim fabric scraps by Elaine of Kosa Arts recently. As soon as he saw it, he immediately asked if I could make him a copy of his favorite hat using that scrap. Hmm, I never made a hat before! I said yes.
The hat’s pattern is quite straightforward. Copying patterns and cutting fabrics went smoothly, thank goodness. I also found some unused elastic scrap to add on the back.
Long story short, BAM! He got a handsome new hat. He wore it right away for the whole day :)
There’s one special thing about this hat. It is the first ever piece of apparel that I attached a “Fafafoom Studio” label to. Does this mean I’m going to offer a limited batch of products for sale? Well, you have to wait and see.
Lucky him: Mended nylon messenger bag
Not only did he get a new hat, my husband also got his black messenger bag repaired on the same month. Lucky guy, eh? I thanked Elaine of Kosa Arts again, who gave me the perfect black cotton canvas scraps to reinforce the bag’s slowly deteriorating side linings.
This mending method of making columns of running stitches and securing the perimeter with blanket stitches was done entirely by hand. It took a while, but I expect this bag will not reappear in my sewing backlog for a long while. I love both the inside and outside of this bag now. The stitches are so lovely to look at and to touch.
Zero Waste Design Exploration, Part 2
Last month, I shared some diagrams of my past projects that employ zero waste design concept. I also mentioned the difference between my usual work flow of designing and making with textile scraps versus pure zero waste design method.
The crucial factor of zero waste design is to know the actual width of fabric you will be working with. To this day, I still don’t have that information, so my first draft of zero waste pattern is not ready yet.
You might be asking, what zero waste garment prototype will I make? After much thinking, I decide it’s going to be a jumpsuit. My notorious nemesis of a garment that I could not truly fall in love with despite multiple attempts.
While I cannot share with you my pattern draft, I can share some sketches! There are two concepts I’m currently thinking about: the first one is more cozy chic, and the second one is more sporty casual.
Both employ wrap pants concept, where the front of the pants is attached to the top, and the back part of the pants are wrapped around your crotch and buttocks before tied to the front on your waist. Since having ties dangling around on the front can be troublesome, I explore some closure options with D-rings or buttons.
The second sketch from left is to show the transitional state when the back-to-front wrap is yet to be fastened. Sorry to disappoint some readers but no, this is not a partially nude design challenge.
I believe in gathering more insights before I move forward. My current perception about jumpsuits is too biased, and I’d love to get more opinions before I evolve my sketches and concept further.
Please help me build a jumpsuit prototype by filling out this short survey!
It only takes a few minutes and all responses are anonymous. Thank you in advance for your help.
BONUS: Parting Thought
I attended Kimberly of Lacelit’s workshop of Crafting Newsletters, and I was inspired to try something new for fun! So to close this newsletter, I’m sharing a picture of a 6” by 8” collage I did recently.
It’s a simple one: three fortune cookie messages laid on top of black and white wallpaper scraps - do the flowers remind you of the refashioned dress pattern? - and deteriorating vintage french lace with tiny pompoms.
These messages resonated with me then, and they resonate even more now. Planning the October showcase means the upcoming months are going to be more hectic, and I am uncomfortable. But it’s alright, because that means I am growing.
I won’t be afraid of either failure or success.
I will not be lonesome in this journey.
And I will do my best to have a warm heart and a cool head.
With that in mind, please wish me the best of luck in planning the activities and logistics around this Bay Area showcase. And please save the date if you are interested in coming to join us on Saturday, October 21 in Oakland. It will be fun!
Thanks for reading; until next time,
Mira Musank