The political march is back in a big way, as communities rally to build movements for environmental and social justice. But today's context calls for increasingly creative strategies to make our voices heard. Crossing the globe, Clare Press meets passionate change-makers who believe in the power of the positive. From eco warriors and zero wasters to knitting nannas, introvert craftivists to intersectional feminists, they're all up for a revolution of sorts. Are you? Join Press as she tracks the formation of a new counterculture, united by a grand purpose- to rethink how we live today to build a more sustainable tomorrow.

    She’d grown accustomed to shopping at outlet malls, discount stores like T.J. Maxx, and cheap but trendy retailers like Forever 21, Target, and H&M. She was buying a new item of clothing almost every week (the national average is sixty-four per year) but all she had to show for it was a closet and countless storage bins packed full of low-quality fads she barely wore—including the same sailor-stripe tops and fleece hoodies as a million other shoppers. When she found herself lugging home seven pairs of identical canvas flats from Kmart (a steal at $7 per pair, marked down from $15!), she realized that something was deeply wrong. Cheap fashion has fundamentally changed the way most Americans dress. Stores ranging from discounters like Target to traditional chains like JCPenney now offer the newest trends at unprecedentedly low prices. Retailers are pro­ducing clothes at enormous volumes in order to drive prices down and profits up, and they’ve turned clothing into a disposable good. After all, we have little reason to keep wearing and repairing the clothes we already own when styles change so fast and it’s cheaper to just buy more. But what are we doing with all these cheap clothes? And more important, what are they doing to us, our society, our environment, and our economic well-being? In Overdressed, Cline sets out to uncover the true nature of the cheap fashion juggernaut, tracing the rise of budget clothing chains, the death of middle-market and independent retail­ers, and the roots of our obsession with deals and steals. She travels to cheap-chic factories in China, follows the fashion industry as it chases even lower costs into Bangladesh, and looks at the impact (both here and abroad) of America’s drastic increase in imports. She even explores how cheap fashion harms the charity thrift shops and textile recyclers where our masses of cloth­ing castoffs end up. Sewing, once a life skill for American women and a pathway from poverty to the middle class for workers, is now a dead-end sweatshop job. The pressures of cheap have forced retailers to drastically reduce detail and craftsmanship, making the clothes we wear more and more uniform, basic, and low quality. Creative inde­pendent designers struggle to produce good and sustainable clothes at affordable prices. Cline shows how consumers can break the buy-and-toss cycle by supporting innovative and stylish sustainable designers and retailers, refash­ioning clothes throughout their lifetimes, and mending and even making clothes themselves. Overdressed will inspire you to vote with your dollars and find a path back to being well dressed and feeling good about what you wear.

    TheCult of the Luxury Brand illuminates the mysterious inner workings of Asia’s love affair with luxury for business professionals and intrigued consumers alike.

    Now, republished in the twenty-first century, these tips can be used to spruce up your household and wardrobe on a dime. The book includes old-fashioned remedies for everything from washing silks to repelling the “moth menace,” as well as patterns and directions on how to patch holes in clothing with stylish fabric, and how to take scraps of wool to create new looks. The book also includes “grand ways to eke out dated or worn cloths” and provides ways of “re-making old garments which you have never considered.” References throughout to the scarcity of materials speaks to how valuable these tips and tricks were in wartime Britain. And in a section devoted to the corset, readers are reminded that “now that rubber is so scarce your corset is one of your most precious possessions.”       From the “too-tight blouse” to the “cure for bagginess”, Make Do and Mend is filled with the charm and wit of the 1940s and provides the time-tested, fail-safe solutions from generations past that will be a delight to nostalgia seekers and homemakers of today.

    In this book, Mari Grinde Arntzen asks how and why this is—how can fashion simultaneously attract us to its glamour and repel us with its superficiality and how being called “fashionable” can be at once a compliment and an insult. Arntzen guides us through the major figures and brands of today’s fashion industry, showing how they shape us and in turn why we love to be shaped by them. She examines both everyday, affordable “fast fashion” brands, as well as the luxury market, to show how fashion commands a powerful influence on every socioeconomic level of our society. Stepping into our closets with us, she thinks about what happens when we get dressed: why fashion can make us feel powerful, beautiful, and original at the same time that it forces us into conformity. Stripping off the layers of the world’s fifth largest industry, garment by garment, she holds fashion up as a phenomenon, business, and art, exploring the questions it forces us to ask about the body, image, celebrity, and self-obsession. Ultimately, Arntzen asks the most direct question: what is fashion? How has it taken such a powerful hold on the world, forever propelling us toward its concepts of beauty?

    Even those who value access to safe, local, nutritious food have largely overlooked the production of fiber, dyes, and the chemistry that forms the backbone of modern textile production. While humans are 100 percent reliant on their second skin, it's common to think little about the biological and human cultural context from which our clothing derives.Almost a decade ago, weaver and natural dyer Rebecca Burgess developed a project focused on wearing clothing made from fiber grown, woven, and sewn within her bioregion of North Central California. As she began to network with ranchers, farmers, and artisans, she discovered that even in her home community there was ample raw material being grown to support a new regional textile economy with deep roots in climate change prevention and soil restoration. A vision for the future came into focus, combining right livelihoods and a textile system based on economic justice and soil carbon enhancing practices. Burgess saw that we could create viable supply chains of clothing that could become the new standard in a world looking to solve the climate crisis.In Fibershed readers will learn how natural plant dyes and fibers such as wool, cotton, hemp, and flax can be grown and processed as part of a scalable, restorative agricultural system. They will also learn about milling and other technical systems needed to make regional textile production possible. Fibershed is a resource for fiber farmers, ranchers, contract grazers, weavers, knitters, slow-fashion entrepreneurs, soil activists, and conscious consumers who want to join or create their own fibershed and topple outdated and toxic systems of exploitation..

    Picking up where the celebrated Alabama Stitch Book left off, Alabama Studio Style is a craft and lifestyle book all in one.   Here Chanin shares many more of her stitching, stenciling, and beading methods and applies them to twenty extraordinary clothing and home décor projects, each made with organic or recycled materials and designed with “haute homespun” flair. Along with the company’s celebrated camisole and tank dresses, the featured projects include skirts, scarves, pillows, woven chair seats, and a stenciled scrap-wood table. Rounding out the book are recipes for three delicious party menus. Alabama Studio Style shows us that true style encompasses not only what we wear, how we decorate, and what we eat, but also how we care for our environment. Praise for Alabama Studio Style “Transform organic or recycled materials into clothing or home décor items with haute homespun flair.” —Better Homes and Gardens Quilts and More magazine

    It does all this through just four very simple mending techniques: exterior patches, interior patches, slow stitches, darning, and weaving. In addition, the book addresses the way mending leads to a more mindful relationship to fashion and to overall well-being. In essays that accompany each how-to chapter, Katrina Rodabaugh explores mending as a metaphor for appreciating our own naturally flawed selves, and she examines the ways in which mending teaches us new skills, self-reliance, and confidence, all gained from making things with our own hands.

    On a broader scale, initiatives to promote a more sustainable approach to fashion have made headlines and grown like never before, from the release of the high-profile documentary The True Cost to the launch of the worldwide “Fashion Revolution” campaign.This timely book is organized into four chapters—Buy, Wear, Care, and Dispose—each containing a short introduction with essential information followed by practical tips and illustrated case studies to help you make the first step toward a more sustainable wardrobe. A detailed reference section recommends not only the best ethical fashion labels and collections but also eco-friendly fabrics, standards, and certifications; cleaning methods; renting, swapping, and recycling initiatives; and much more.

    Roach puts a new spin on mending by adapting traditional techniques for today’s crafty sewers. With detailed photography to show each step, she teaches a wide range of patching, darning, and repair stitches using both hand and machine sewing. The how-to text is accompanied by dozens of inspiring examples from Kristin’s own work and that of other craft bloggers and artisans. You'll love the innovative solutions using appliqués, patches, brightly colored accents, and intricate lace details. With Mend It Better, every garment and fabric repair is a chance for self-expression and fabulous creations.

    She explains the principles of ethical fashion, from why it matters to how to do it. Tips are offered for the aspiring green goddess—including how to knit your own scarf, seduction in eco-couture, the best places to shop for vintage sunglasses, and ethical bling. Fun facts and essential directories on every aspect of sustainable stylish living are also included. With a foreword from Lily Cole, illustrations throughout by top fashion illustrator Kat Heyes (Gucci, Calvin Klein, Vogue, and Elle) and fashion secrets from celebrity friends, Green is the New Black is the chicest, greenest survival manual around. If you want to change the world—and your wardrobe—don’t go shopping without it.

    In Fugitive Denim journalist Rachel Louise Snyder reports from the far reaches of this multi-billion-dollar industry in search of the real people who make your clothes. From a cotton picker in Azerbaijan to a Cambodian seamstress, a denim maker in Italy to a fashion designer in New York, Snyder captures the human, environmental, and political forces at work in a dizzyingly complex and often absurd world. In a disarming and humorous voice, she ponders questions of equity, sweatshops, and corporate social responsibility through narratives of individual people, making an often academic subject accessible and compelling. Neither polemic nor prescription, Fugitive Denim captures what it means to be at work in the world in the twenty-first century.

    The 4 quilts in this pattern use 1 big block to make quilts that are about 45 inches square finished. The units for these quilts include four patches, nine patches, half square triangles and tri square triangles.

    You will ALSO get FREE ACCESS to Kitty's Premium Image Gallery, which contains images of all the crafts featured in ALL of her books! The free access links are inside the book. From the Best Selling Arts & Crafts Writer, Kitty Moore, comes Sewing: Sewing For Beginners (5th Edition) - Quick & Easy Way To Learn How To Sew With 50 Patterns for Beginners! This book will teach you the beginners techniques to sewing, with quick and easy beginners instructions. Along with 50 beginners' patterns! If you want to learn how to sew, but can't seem to grasp the basics... If you want a new hobby and sewing interests you... Or if the idea of receiving a full list of sewing instructions and patterns appeals to you... THEN THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU! This book provides you with a step-by-step beginners sewing guide to help you get started with your new hobby. This is also my 5th Edition of the book - after months of feedback and editing, my team and I have produced the MOST EFFECTIVE & BEST-SELLING Beginners Sewing book on Amazon! Some of the information provided in this sewing guide include: Learning About Your Sewing Machine Learn Parts Of Your Machine The Power Switch The Spool Pin The Thread Guide The Bobbin Winder The Stitch Adjustment The Thread Take-Up Lever The Tension Dial The Needle Clamp Screw The Presser Foot The Presser Foot Lever The Needle Plate The Feed Dog The Bobbin Cover And Bobbin Release Setting Up your Machine Sewing With Your Machine Sewing A Straight Stitch Sewing A Seam Sewing A Sharp Corner Selecting A Pattern Measuring & Cutting Out Material Lets Start Sewing! Baby Blanket Gardening Apron Kitchen Towel Head Scarf Simple Contrasting Tablecloth Easy As Pie Coin Purse Silk Handkerchief Easiest Kitchen Curtain Well, what are you waiting for? Download YOUR copy TODAY! Tags: sewing, beginners sewing, sewing patterns, sewing for beginners, sewing for kids, needlepoint patterns, needlepoint stitches

    It's bad news for the planet, our brains and our bank balances. We can't go on like this; our shopping habits need an overhaul.Journalist Lauren Bravo loves clothes more than anything, but she's called time on her affair with fast fashion in search of a slower, saner way of dressing. In this book, she'll help you do the same.How To Break Up With Fast Fashion will help you to change your mindset, fall back in love with your wardrobe and embrace more sustainable ways of shopping - from the clothes swap to the charity shop. Full of refreshing honesty and realistic advice, Lauren will inspire you to repair, recycle and give your unloved items a new lease of life without sacrificing your style.Because fashion belongs to everyone, but no outfit should cost us the earth.