An Introduction

I am a new contributer to Re-fashion Co-op, and before I start posting refashions I thought I'd give a brief summary of my background and let you know what I have to offer and hope to learn from my experiences with doing this.  For a more indepth summary about me you can go to my About page, and my blog can be found here.

My name is Rachel.  I am a Christian, wife, and step mom to three boys.  I'm primarily a sewist and most of my refashions thus far have been mending jobs.  Here is a post on my most recent garment project I finished, and here is a post on some brief mending jobs I did on some of my favorite articles of clothing just to give you all a basic idea of what I do.

I have been sewing on and off for a couple of years now, and am a lover of vintage inspiration.  I'm beginning to delve into historical clothing reproductions, and am basically passionate about anything to do with fiber: knitting, felting, crocheting, sewing, quilting, etc.  Eventually I'd love to branch into jewelry making, millinery, and shoe cobbling.  However, there are only so many hours in a day so those will have to wait...for now.

I play the piano, sing, and enjoy music history just as much as fashion history.  One day I'd love to learn how to play the cello, and I sometimes can be found tinkering with my guitar.  I love to cook, and I love to read and write and frequently books can mean more to me than clothes.  I'm a medic in the US Army, and one day would like to be a firefighter paramedic.  Basically, if you haven't figured this out yet, I'm all over the place and can't stand to be bored so I keep myself busy.  Maybe one day I'll begin to settle into a more focused career path, but until then I'm having a blast doing everything I possibly can in this life I'm living.

What I really hope to offer on this blog is more of a focus on refashioning clothes I already own instead of buying things to refashion, or replacing something I own with something that fits the need better.  While I'm not necessarily the best minimalist on this earth (my book collection kind of gives me away here), I have become more aware of a desire in myself to require less.  I've lost a lot of interest in buying new clothes, accessories, and shoes except for very specific pieces, and most of them I can make myself.  I've been really trying to not increase my clothing collection, but to decrease it to only the things I love to wear.

I really love how my wardrobe has been developing.  It's been cultivated over time, and many of the pieces are old favorites I'd like to preserve as long as possible.  Thus my desire to really try and stick to refashioning what I already have, or improve upon it.  I have a couple of resources that are my main inspiration with this, and some are books by Mary Brooks Pickens that concern mending and fabric.  There are some fantastic refashioning ideas for old garments in her books that I will be referencing frequently...along with my other library of sewing books...ahem.

Anyway!  So this is me, and I can't wait to get started with sharing my experiments with all of you!