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At the Galway International Arts Festival on Saturday, I had the privilege of hosting a public interview with Prof Rebecca Earley, called "The Power of Less".

Earley is at the forefront of sustainable design. She is a textile designer who is also the director of centre for circular design at Chelsea College of Arts, director of the Textile Future Research Centre, lead researcher at Textiles Environment Design, where she created "the 10", a series of sustainable strategies, and she has worked with brands such as H&M and Puma.

Earley is a proponent of the circular economy, where instead of everything ending up as waste as it does in the linear economy, the economic system becomes a regenerative one, where waste, emissions and energy are minimised. This can take the form of recycling, repairing, reusing, and also diverting by-products or potential waste products to other industries for use or reuse.

Conversations about sustainability and fashion tend to revolve around the slow-fashion movement, inspired by the slow-food movement, and reacting to our fast-fashion reality - cheap clothes, mass-produced in factories in developing countries, with a massive turnover when it comes to getting the latest trends on the shop floor as quickly as possible for the cheapest price. We cannot claim the real costs of this are hidden, given the continuous attention brought to the environmental and human costs in that production and supply chain.

Point of privilege

Slow fashion, like organic food, is often spoken about from a point of privilege, where people have spending options, and should "do the right thing". Earley asks the provocative question about how can sustainability fit into the reality that we're already experiencing. How can sustainable clothing also think fast? This is where design can lead, designing to minimise waste, reduce chemical impacts, reduce energy and water use, design using cleaner technologies, design for ethical production and design for less stuff in general, reducing the need to consume.

Slow fashion cannot be the only solution, and that's a challenging point of view. The guilt and education factor works for some conscientious consumers who have the option of buying a few items of premium, ethnical clothing a year, but the reality is that they are a tiny percentage of overall consumers. We cannot ignore the majority of consumer behaviour.

Cotton is a problem, causing issues across agriculture, water and waste. It can take 20,000 litres of water to produce a kilo of cotton

Earley assessed my own clothing. Dr Martens boots, which I buy the same pair of every three or four years, came out okay. My go-to black skinny jeans, which I'm rarely out of, were revealed to be 91 per cent cotton, 6 per cent polyester and 3 per cent elastane.

Cotton is a problem, causing issues across agriculture, water and waste. It can take 20,000 litres of water to produce a kilo of cotton. According to the World Wildlife Federation, while 2.4 per cent of the world's crop land is planted with cotton, it accounts for 24 per cent of the global sales of insecticide. Cotton farming has caused the destruction of seas, river basins, and has massive health and economic impacts on people who farm it and their families. When crops fail, people are made destitute, and the level of chemicals involved in its growing have huge health implications.

Elastane is a right pain, making it difficult to recycle clothes it's a component of because it's so hard to extract the fibres. Its use has grown massively with the boom in stretchy jeans and trousers, as well as leggings and exercise gear. So that was a fail. My Cos shirt turned out to be 100 per cent polyester, a fabric synonymous with fast fashion, but which lasts for 200 years and is made from petrochemicals, having a double whammy of issues with recycling as well as requiring a fossil fuel for its production. Damn it. And I thought I was doing well.

Landfill

Earley spoke about some clothes shops dealing in fast fashion, where it is not worth their while at closing time to pick up and clean the items of clothing that have ended up on the floor during the course of shopping hours. Instead this clothing is swept off the shop floor and discarded, ending up in landfill. She spoke about microfibres - the clothing version of microbeads, which we've been hearing a lot about recently - and the increasing alarm related to them, how items of clothing shed tiny threads in the wash, which are then ingested by fish, which we in turn eat. Fleeces in particular are major culprits.

The complexity and scale of the damage the textile industry does to the planet and its people are huge, yet it's refreshing to hear Earley, a leader in this area working with big brands, talk about broad solutions, not niche ones. While conversations and online bragging about sustainability and a renewed interest in recycling and repairing are becoming increasingly amplified, the figures in terms of consumption do not correlate.

One particular project Earley and her children undertook was something we could all try: a year of buying nothing new. One of the issues with conversations around sustainability is that those who have the privilege of being able to change their behaviour are the least likely to experience the environmental and economic impact of their consumption habits, and so the immediacy of actually changing how we shop and what we wear can feel vague and distant. But the problem is not far away at all. For most of us, we're wearing it right now.

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Una Mullally: Cheap fashion comes at a price we cannot afford

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At the Galway International Arts Festival on Saturday, I had the privilege of hosting a public interview with Prof Rebecca Earley, called "The Power of Less". Earley is at the forefront of sustainable design.

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It's Cloughmills, but not - or knit - as you may know it.

The County Antrim village has been painstakingly recreated in wool over the last seven months by 30 members of the Cloughmills Crochet Club.

May Aitcheson started the club six years ago.

"I went to Cushendall to see a small model village people had made there and decided we should try this - but ours snowballed," she said.

"People did more and more and by the time they all got added on, ours ended up very big.

"I'm absolutely thrilled with it, I couldn't believe it turned out the way it did.

"The ladies worked so hard, I'm very proud of them."

As well as developing crafting skills, the crochet club is important in helping elderly people socialise in what can be an isolated rural community.

Club member Kathleen Taggart said: "I just love getting out and meeting people, it gives us all somewhere to go.

"When you're retired you miss your work, and this is better than work."

Mary Shaw said: "I've made so many friends and learned to do things I thought I would never be able to do.

"I live in an isolated place, and I've made friends from both sides of the community and that's an important thing for me."

Margaret Murphy said: "We just look forward to meeting up every week and getting the latest gossip."

As for what the group's next big project could be, she said: "That's what we don't know, I mean where do we go from here?

"Maybe a model of Belfast, but we'd need lots of helpers for that one."

The Cloughmills model will remain in the village's Orange Hall - because it's now too big to fit through the doors.

And as long as people want to see it, mini Cloughmills will remain on display.

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Village knitting image has people hooked

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It's Cloughmills, but not - or knit - as you may know it. The County Antrim village has been painstakingly recreated in wool over the last seven months by 30 members of the Cloughmills Crochet Club. May Aitcheson started the club six years ago.

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Changing Global Health One Stitch at a Time

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Knit and crochet have therapeutic benefits to mood, mind and body. Video highlights the latest clinical studies from Harvard Medical School, the Mayo Clinic, and more... Changing Global Health One Stitch at a Time features interviews on the healing aspects of the hand/brain connection with Dr. Carrie Barron, Psychiatrist, Columbia College of Physicians and Dr. Alton Barron, Orthopedic Surgeon, St.

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SINGER® START™ 1304 Sewing Machine - Threading

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L.O - 3.9 apply their knowledge of textile care symbols 

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L.O - 3.9 apply their knowledge of textile care symbols 

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Whether washing, drying, ironing or dry-cleaning: there are signs and symbols for everything that convey certain dos and don'ts.

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L.O - 3.8 discuss the influences of trends and choices on textile and clothing, including ethical and ecological considerations

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L.O - 3.8 discuss the influences of trends and choices on textile and clothing, including ethical and ecological considerations

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How to Engage with Ethical Fashion | Clara Vuletich | TEDxSydney

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L.O - 3.7 evaluate textile care procedures used in the home from an environmental perspective

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L.O - 3.7 evaluate textile care procedures used in the home from an environmental perspective

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Microbeads are tiny pieces of plastic frequently used in cosmetic and cleansing products. They are less than 5mm in diameter. They are found in toothpastes, shower gels, defoliants, bodywashes, face scrubs,detergents, cleansing agents, sunscreens, scouring agents and synthetic fibres in clothing.

Invented in the 1980s, they had medical applications including in Aids testing and cancer treatments but began to get a notorious reputation when they were increasing found in marine environments.They are too small to be removed by sewage filtration systems and end up in rivers and oceans, where they are ingested by birds, fish and other marine life.
What are they used for?
Microbeads are used to give products their gritty texture, or in some instances a smooth structure.
How prevalent are they?
There are about 100,000 microbeads in a facewash product. A single shower can result in 100,000 plastic particles entering the ocean, according to one estimate - the number that gets washed down plugholes in the US every day has been calculated at about 808 trillion. They get eaten by tiny plankton and work their way up the food chain where they have been found in the stomachs of large fish and fish-eating birds.

The amount of plastic waste created in Ireland is unknown, as the EPA is only obliged to report on plastic packaging waste. Microplastic waste created by a range of industries is currently not measured or regulated, although new research from Galway Mayo Institute of Technology gives an indication of its occurrence in rivers and lakes.

Some 90 per cent of microplastics, it found, are channelled through the waste water treatment system and is ending up in sewage sludge and 10 per cent is still going out in treated water, which then goes back into our rivers and lakes. We apply sewage sludge mostly to agricultural land for tillage yet we don't know or understand what happens to it after that.

Marine experts fear there could be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050, measured by weight, according to a factsheet from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a UK-based charity working to end waste in the economy. Plastic is omnipresent in oceans, it notes - the same goes for microbeads.
Where are mircobeads banned?
The Netherlands banned them in 2014, the US in 2015 and Canada in 2016. The UK has followed suit with a plan to ban microbeads in cosmetics by the end of 2017. Some cosmetic companies have also stopped using them voluntarily. In 2012 Unilever said it would no longer put them in its products, while L'Oréal and Procter & Gamble have also said they will stop using them. Boots removed microbeads from its own brands in 2014.
What are the implications for human health?
So far there is no scientific evidence that microplastics pose a risk to humans when passed up the food chain by fish but there is growing concern about the possibility.

A review by the European Food Safety Authority says the digestive tract of marine organisms contains the largest quantities of microplastics but this part is normally discarded before consumption. However, the digestive tract of bivalves such as mussels is eaten. It says microplastics are likely to originate from other sources than the food itself, e.g. processing aids, water, air or being release from machinery, equipment and textiles. It is therefore possible that the amount of microplastics increases during processing.

The GMIT study, however, outlines a series of "potential risks" to humans from drinking water or eating food that contains microbeads.
What can you do to minimise their use?
Consumers can help by checking product labels for cosmetics and cleaners to see if they certify they are microplastic free.

Scientists at the University of Bath have developed biodegradable cellulose microbeads that could replace plastic versions, but this promising breakthrough is likely to take some years before they may be routinely used in commercial products.

In the meantime, natural, biodegradable, alternatives to microbeads exist, such as jojoba beads, apricot kernels, ground nutshells and salt.

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Microbeads: The facts, the fears and the fight have them banned

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Microbeads are tiny pieces of plastic frequently used in cosmetic and cleansing products. They are less than 5mm in diameter. They are found in toothpastes, shower gels, defoliants, bodywashes, face scrubs,detergents, cleansing agents, sunscreens, scouring agents and synthetic fibres in clothing.

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L.O - 3.6 demonstrate ways in which clothing and/or textile household items can be repaired, re-used, re-purposed, recycled and upcycled

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L.O - 3.6 demonstrate ways in which clothing and/or textile household items can be repaired, re-used, re-purposed, recycled and upcycled

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Click links below to visit page::::::: For a list of my DIY tutorials that have basic supplies and instructions click here ...

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L.O - 3.5 appreciate the therapeutic and leisure role of participating in textile work 

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L.O - 3.5 appreciate the therapeutic and leisure role of participating in textile work 

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Sewing and embroidery design, among other arts and craft activities offer some of the best health enhancement practices. Learn more.

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L.O - 3.4 demonstrate fabric embellishment techniques 

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L.O - 3.4 demonstrate fabric embellishment techniques 

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By Threads magazine

Embellishments go a long way toward making a garment visually engaging. From pin tucks to detachable flowers, there are so many different kinds of embellishments that you can always find something new. Here, we've rounded up nearly 20 of our favorites to give you ideas to try on your next sewing project. Each of these creative techniques is explained thoroughly, and with so many of them in one place you are bound to find something to inspire you.

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19 Inventive Embellishment Ideas - Threads

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By Threads magazine Embellishments go a long way toward making a garment visually engaging. From pin tucks to detachable flowers, there are so many different kinds of embellishments that you can always find something new. Here, we've rounded up nearly 20 of our favorites to give you ideas to try on your next sewing project.

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L.O - 3.3 apply basic hand sewing and/or machine sewing techniques to the making of a textile item for an individual or the home in a safe and appropriate way

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L.O - 3.3 apply basic hand sewing and/or machine sewing techniques to the making of a textile item for an individual or the home in a safe and appropriate way

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L.O - 3.2 apply the design brief process and principles to the making of a creative textile item for an individual or the home 

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L.O - 3.2 apply the design brief process and principles to the making of a creative textile item for an individual or the home 

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fabric manipulation, art and garments that could inspire an upcycling project | See more ideas about Craft ideas, Upcycling and Accessories.

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L.O - 3.1 demonstrate basic hand and machine sewing techniques

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L.O - 3.1 demonstrate basic hand and machine sewing techniques

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Hand Embroidery for Beginners - Part 2 | 10 Basic Stitches | HandiWorks #52

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Beginners hand embroidery. Follow me as I learn how to do the art of hand embroidery, and invite you to learn with me. Today i will be covering 10 Basic stitches. Once you familiarize yourself with basic stitches, you will find that they are the foundation to those more elaborate stitches that once seemed too difficult to tackle.