Book Review: 'Sew Your Own'

Now this isn't a refashion I'm sharing today. It's not even about book about how to refashion. It's a book about WHY we sew, crochet, knit and refashion. I'm sure everyone who is a part of this co-op has concerns of sustainability as part of the motivation behind their refashioning adventures. This book explores those links further as well as other topics and inspirations that led him to investigate creative ways to alter his way of living and interacting with his physical environment.

Everyone, of course, has their own experiences, interests and concerns, and I for one find it fascinating to read about how individuals arrived at the conclusion to sew and refashion. Particularly when the author is as expressive as Mr Flintoff and has access (through his job as a features writer for a major UK newspaper) to such a variety of inspirational people and organisations as he references in this book.

You can read my larger review of 'Sew Your Own' here, but in short: I would recommend getting hold of a copy of this book, I’d be surprised if there was nothing you found in it which touched you. Alternatively, it would make a great present for anyone you know who has expressed interest in your refashioning shenanigans, or those who could do with some schooling about why you refashion and create.

Hello World!

Hi there, this is Kiki here. I'm new to Refashion Co-op, but I can't wait to get started. Most of my projects come from this author and refashionista Megan Nicolay (check out her website : http://www.generation-t.com/). If you have a lot of old t-shirts, these are the books for you since every single project revolves around re-using and refashioning t-shirts. There are two books; the first one is all about your wardrobe and accessories, while the second is about both fashion and other items for home, your car or your pet. Many of the projects are no-sew, which is good for those who have sewing phobia. The books also give you variations for many of the projects, which allows you to experiment with your own designs.

Thanks for letting me join, and I hope you enjoy my refashioned items!

Sincerely,
Kiki

Refashion Co-op Valentines launch

I would like to start this launch post by saying thank you! Thank you to everyone who took an interest in this concept and especially thank you to the six women who signed up as editors.

I took the refashion pledge at Wardrobe Refashion (WR) last autumn and loved it mightily. The community spirit amongst refashioners was so warming and I was inspired by all the refashions they shared. However, it was all too soon over. In November Nikki posted that WR was going to close down. I was gutted and I didn't want to let go!

I had a long think about it, considering whether I would like to start something similar myself. But talking it over with my husband made me realise that it would just add too much work and stress to my life at the moment with all the other projects that were going on. So I started thinking about whether there was another way of recreating something like the WR community without me having to do all the work and take all the responsibility myself. One thing that came to me in all this was that if you want to share the work load with someone you also have to be willing to share the responsibility and of course the credit and I was more than willing to do both.

So I contacted fellow refashionista Erica, who I had already been chatting to on twitter, to see if she was interested in doing something together. She was very positive towards the idea but we decided at first to go together on interviewing some of the refashionistas we had met through WR. So the idea was shelved for a little bit. I did my first interview with Zoe and Erica did hers with Jillian. While interviewing Zoe we got to talking about the idea of having a refashion blog with several editors. Zoe encouraged me to go ahead with the idea and this inspired me to write the post 'Refashionista Co-operative idea" in January. This post was mainly aimed at anyone interested in being an editor in such a co-operative and Bryony, Debbie, Erica, Jenni, Jessica and Jillian contacted me saying that they were interested.

This all happened in the middle of January and now a month later we are ready to launch the blog. The time has now come for contributors to sign up to the Refashion Co-op. Over the next couple of weeks we will be signing up contributors and figuring out the rules for contributing. They won't be strict or inhibiting as we are well aware that the contributors are what is going to make this blog great. We will ask however, that everyone behaved nicely towards each other and encourages each other with comments and likes. This is where the editors come in again. As we are 7 editors at the moment, each editor will have one day a week where they are on shift. Editors will not change or do corrections to your posts. But they will read each post and comment to make sure everyone is playing nice.

The amount of editors on Refashion Co-op is the main strength of the blog. It means that each of us has the support of the other 6 and that we shouldn't be burned out by having to keep an eye on things each and every day. There may also come a day when one of the editors decide that they need to take a break from RC. If this is the case we can easily take on new editors, since no one editor owns the blog.

Finally, I would like to add a little something about the badge. You are most welcome to use it to link to the blog, whether you are a contributor or a reader/supporter. As neither of the editors are professional graphic designers we have decided to start out with one, simple but effective badge design. We are then hoping in the long run to have a competition for a makeover of the blog and the badge. But for now we hope you will make good use of this one.



All there is left to do is to introduce the editors: Bryony, Debbie, Erica, Jenni, Jessica, Jillian and myself, Eddie. Please go to the editors page and read more about us. We each have our own blogs and write about a lot of exciting things beyond refashioning. Over the coming days you will get a chance to meet each of us as refashionistas through a series of interview style posts.

Thank you and please enjoy the Refashion Co-op!

Eddie