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Waste to Yarn, 2020

Fashion Design, Textile Design, Up-Cycling


The Waste to Yarn project involved cutting up old discarded polyester bed sheets found in second hand shops and turning them into usable yarn. This vest was hand-knit using crochet. While being a time consuming process, this method allows us to re-use discarded fabric and turn it into new fashion pieces. By using suitable machinery, such as mechanical cutting and spinning equipment, this process could be made more effective. The goal would be to build machines that would be made available in maker labs, such as FabLabs, and made accessible to the public, to designers and to small businesses. This would allow local communities to turn waste into yarn for personal or commercial use.




Dyeing and Sewing Pillows and Bed Sheets, 2019

Natural Dyes, Hand Embroidery, Textile Design


The energy used to power the machines in the production process of textiles takes up about 85% of the entire carbon footprint of a textile product. This percentage is mostly influenced by the dyeing process of a garment, which can be incredibly polluting. Dyeing plants are known to pollute the environment in a visible effect, such as by turning rivers red. There is a famous saying quoted by fashion designer Orsola de Castro, where she says that "there is a joke in China that you can tell the 'it' color of the season by looking at the color of the rivers." For these reasons, it is very important to reconsider our dyeing practices, and look into natural, non-toxic alternatives. The key is of course to implement these practices on a larger scale, and to use advanced technology to invent new, effective and environmentally friendly alternatives. A great example of this implementation is the company DyeCoo in the Netherlands. Nevertheless, it is important to learn from traditional dyeing customs too, which are very well documented in books such as Eco Colour by India Flint, and Botanical Inks by Babs Behan.

In this project, I experimented with traditional dyeing practices by using nettles, ferns and other unknown plants, which resulted in a unique pattern of the bedsheet shown in the pictures below. The pillow was dyed with avocado waste. The process of dyeing with avocado waste involves thoroughly cleaning discarded avocado pits and shells, and boiling them to extract their dyes. Before dyeing my fabric, I always make sure to mordant it. So far, I have used alum salt, but there are other alternatives out there, such as tannin or cream of tartar. The embroidery of the pillow was inspired by Sashiko stitching.



Waste Embroidery, 2019

Up-Cycling, Hand Embroidery


This totebag was an experiment of my own patience and endurance. Being surrounded by environmental activists in college, the topic and dread of climate change was regularly preoccupying my mind. At that time, this totebag was the result of a need to re-use wasted materials. I was using textile design to express myself creatively and to figure out how we could re-use waste to change the current state of the world.



© Lucas Garvey

Sketches


A collection of sketches for various projects.