MY OUTFIT IS FINISHED!!!
And I am showing it all together here for the first time. Can I just say right here; wooooohooooot!
The challenge, as laid out by Nicki of this is moonlight, should you choose to accept it, and I did! was to make for yourself an entire outfit using ONLY locally sourced materials. Sounds simple, right? It has been anything but!
I’m very grateful to Nicki for conceiving this brilliant and very thought-provoking challenge, and for inviting me to take part. This has been one exceedingly amazing ride, has blown my mind more than any other dressmaking challenge I’ve ever done, and really pushed my creativity to the limit. At the beginning of the year I seriously did not think I would be taking my outfit to the levels I did…. I thought for sure I would be giving myself a pass on some things, for example; thread, and allowing myself to use regular Gutermann’s thread. As time went on though I toughened up, embraced the idea of going the whole hog; and I’m very pleased that I did manage to rise to the challenge and make the maximum possible from locally sourced products!
In fact, I’m quite proud and extremely happy! :))
For the challenge, I made:
a knitted alpaca cardigan/jacket
a merino felt dress
merino felt and pine shoes
a merino fleece bag
merino fleece undies and bra
In a nutshell, every single blinking thing I have on here is made by myself, using pretty close to 100% south-west Australian sourced materials
Those of us in Western Australia; Sue, Megan, Nicki and myself, have had to be quite innovative in our approach, I think. I mean, forget zips, thread, elastic… there is not even any freaking fabric made in WA! This was our single biggest hurdle, I think!
However, we are extremely fortunate in that we have wool available to us; lots and lots of wool! Australia has the world’s biggest wool economy… did you know that 80% of the world’s apparel wool is from Australia? and Australian merino is the world’s best quality woollen fibre. 22% of the country’s wool production is here in Western Australia (source)
Hardly surprising then that all four of us have used wool as the majority component in our outfits.
My dress, bag, underwear and shoe tops are made from Western Australian merino fleece. I made my wool felt fabric from the fleece as outlined in this post. My dress is made from natural undyed merino fleece felt, and I hand-embroidered the fleece all over with locally handspun, undyed merino yarn.
The embroidery design is my own; a random arrangement of of kangaroo paw motif, for our Western Australian state floral emblem.
My underwear features the only “colour” in my entire outfit; I dyed the decorative yellow edging and ties using sour grass picked from my own garden, as posted here.
All the other fleece, yarn and wood in my outfit I left in its naturally coloured state.
My cardigan is alpaca yarn, from the Fibre of the Gods, a tiny mill operating on a farm in Toodyay. This establishment produces alpaca yarn on their own property, from the fleece of their very own alpaca herd. I bought some of their yarn directly from off the farm and knitted my cardigan, as posted here.
My wooden shoe soles are hand carved by me, using Western Australian pine. The pine is grown by Bunnings on their own pine plantations down south and milled by Bunnings in Manjimup. I made my shoes and my bag from my merino fleece as outlined here My bag and shoe tops are also merino fleece, with a grid pattern made of naturally black sheep yarn.
And that’s it, in a nutshell!
Well, typing it all out like this has kinda brought it home to me for the first time; I am wearing a pretty-close-to 100% homegrown outfit, top to toe, for maybe the first time in my life! I’m kinda amazed, even at myself. It’s a little mind-blowing to me.
Final thoughts: I’ve learnt a tonne doing this challenge. Firstly, our local industries are precious and need our support. That goes for everywhere, not just here in WA! I personally am going to put more effort into supporting our local products regularly. I mean, I’m definitely not giving up my more “regular” sewing, but I am going to do this challenge again.
Secondly, that if you really put your mind towards doing something, keep yourself focused on getting a project done, to overcoming obstacles, then you probably can do it. Sometimes you need to sleep on it, think outside the box a bit. I learnt a lot as I was going along, and several times had to improvise a solution to a problem. There were moments when I questioned my sanity in doing this, when I wondered if my ideas were even going to work… a felt dress? unlined? felt underwear? sounds like the vision of a lunatic, or at least a recipe for disaster, for sure… well OK even I can admit that felt underwear is not really a practical nor a workable thing! … do NOT recommend. 😉
Also, I had lots of fun!! I LOVE a challenge and this challenge really stretched my capabilities; which is the very best sort of challenge, in my opinion! I thought hard and long about each aspect of my outfut and tried very hard to honour the materials, to minimise my waste and to make something truly Western Australian in feel and flavour as well as provenance.
There were also moments when I realised I had to accept a small defeat; in the case of this outfit; the glue holding pieces of wood together in my shoes (from NSW, Australia), the nails holding the felt to the soles of my shoes (China) and the cotton jersey liner for my undies (China). They are very tiny elements so I’m not going to beat myself up over them too much.
I guess the important thing is that I gave everything careful consideration, and really thought about provenance and the possibility of substituting local products in as many instances as I was able. As well, I wanted to produce something stylish and lovely, that I knew I would love wearing and feel proud and happy in. I genuinely love my outfit, and feel pretty pleased with my efforts!
Lastly; maybe I’m on a bit of a post-challenge high, but I’m quite excited about attempting this again next year… in fact I already have ideas and plans!
Mad? maybe, but quite happy to be so!
Details:
Cardigan; the Caramel cardigan, in Fibre of the Gods natural alpaca, grown, shorn, washed, carded and spun in Toodyay, Western Australia and hand-knitted by me, details here
Dress; my own design based upon Burda 8511, made from merino felt made by me and hand embroidered with locally handspun merino yarn from Bilby Yarns, details here
Shoes; my own design, pine soles from Bunnings hand carved by me, felt tops made by me from merino fleece bought at Bilby Yarns, details here
Bag; my own design, in felt made by me from merino fleece bought at Bilby Yarns, details here
Underwear; my own design, knickers derived from the Tried & True knickers pattern by the Makers Journal, in felt made from merino fleece bought at Bilby Yarns, details here
