Guerilla Bagging Workshop with BCU Shift, Birmingham Scrapstore and Morsbags

I have been interested in sustainability for a very long time. Anything that looks at being eco-conscious, particularly within fashion, I try to join in with to share my own thoughts and broaden my knowledge through other eco creatives.

This interest has led me to book a ticket to Shift, the upcoming student conference exploring sustainability, and the future of fashion and textiles at Birmingham City University. In the lead up to this, the organisers set up a guerilla bagging workshop to create recycled bags to exhibit at the conference. This workshop was in association with Birmingham Scrapstore and Morsbags. 

The Birmingham Scrapstore collects unwanted materials and redistributes them within the community so they can be used for alternative purposes, and therefore, reducing the amount of waste that heads to landfill. 

Morsbags is an organisation encouraging people to make and gift a bag made of recycled materials instead of using a plastic bag. Their aim is to reduce the use of plastic bags and reduce the amount that ends up in our waterways; causing harm to marine life and the environment. 

For this workshop, i chose to combine a number of recycled resources together and try and make the bag as zero-waste as possible. Whatever needed to be cut off was either repurposed on the bag in someway, shared with another person, or returned back to the Scrapstore so the remnants could be turned into stuffing for cushions and toys. 

Take a look at the photos below to see how i built my recycled bag.

There are some tickets still available for the Shift conference if you would like to go. It is a free event and open to everyone. Johnny Kerkhof and Caryn Franklin will be speaking at the event. You can book your place here and follow Shift in the lead up to the conference on their instagram page. 
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Graffiti Art Celebrating Spring

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Global Approaches to Pattern Cutting-Freehand Cutting-The Final Session

It was the last lecture in the Global Approaches to Pattern Cutting series today, and part 2 of the freehand cutting sessions.

Today we took all the measurements we collected last week and using Chinelo Bally's bodice drafting process, we started to created our own.

We weren't brave enough to draft directly on to fabric (a few more practices are needed!) so used pattern paper instead. A few students struggled a bit with the process but found that as they worked through the steps, it became easier.

Take a look at the photos from the session below:


Thank you to everyone who has been to the Global Approaches to Pattern Cutting lectures; its been great sharing all these wonderful processes with you. Looking forward to developing new content for future sessions.

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Spring has sprung with White Willow Art

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Birmingham Art Gallery

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Global Approaches to Pattern Cutting-Traditional Freehand Cutting

Today was part 5 of my Global Approaches to Pattern Cutting lecture series. This was session 1 of 2 that explores the process of freehand pattern cutting.

This method has been around for centuries and is primarily used in Africa and Asia. The practice involves drawing measurements directly on to fabric with chalk instead of drafting through metric processes on to paper. In African communities, freehand cutting is taught as part of home economic classes in schools and sometimes, used in small scale production processes.

The process begins with precise measurements being taken from someone; vertical and horizontal, and these are used with added ease amounts to draft the pattern.

Chinelo Bally's Book
(Source: thefoldline.com)
Drafting process
(Source: Chinellobally.wordpress.com)
There is very little documentation about freehand pattern cutting in the UK. However, one of the books that has been written about this process is 'Freehand Fashion: Learn to Sew the Perfect Wardrobe-No Patterns Required!' by Chinelo Bally. She was a contestant on the Great British Sewing Bee in 2014 and was taught this process by her Aunt, and she also runs classes around the country talking about this practice. The freehand process that she discusses in her book is the Nigerian method, however I understand there is also a Ghanaian method too.

Freehand Fashion by Chinelo Bally
(Source: Amazon.com)
My first attempt at a freehand bodice
I personally found this method very hard to understand at first. Having been taught how to pattern draft using metric methods (a la Winifred Aldrich), i found the proportions difficult to work with. It  requires a different way of thinking when you have been used to a more structured way of drafting. However, I tested this process a few times before introducing it to my students.

This method has been tested by a number of sewing bloggers such as The Foldline, House of Pinheiro, Almond Rock and English Girl at home. However, this process isn't without its problems. It can be considered quite wasteful as if a mistake is made, it is difficult to repair, and it cant be used for larger scale production of garments as it is quite time consuming.

In this session, we focused on taking precise measurements that we could use to develop our bodice patterns next week. Take a look at the photos below to see how we got on.



To find out more about Chinelo Bally and the Freehand method, head over to her website.

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#bcuadventures: Textile Design Students in association with Colour Hive & Mix Magazine


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