Lubaba Abbas Kazmi
Thursday, 11thApril 2019
Spring Elective: Fashion and Culture
Project 2
Recycling in art is a common phenomenon. Artists often use recycled material to create attractive pieces of contemporary art and turn everyday trash into creative objects. But even with other forms of art, recycling is very popular as artists take elements like ideas, objects and themes. Poets and writers also recycle words in their literary work.
Beauty comes from within and radiates out into the world. If you put in effort with good intentions, it will show in the work you produce. Hence, making it beautiful.
For this project I collected a fabric that was wasted. For class last week I took a pillow cover thrown away by my suitemate as it got bleached from the corner. Another piece was black silky fabric that I got from FABSCRAP. I had no idea what I was going to do with them.
This week while I was going through my drawers, I found a box of plastic straws that I had gotten last semester for personal use. This was the perfect opportunity to make use of the waste and make something beautiful. The adverse impacts of plastic are undeniable. However, I will feel less guilty if I reincorporate that into a project instead of throwing it in the trash.
I want to make a halter neck top for this project from the pillow cover. I want to either make something with embroidery or iron on a print. I haven’t decided yet, but I was thinking of making the straps with straw by ironing them and making them flat. If it’s too stiff to wear, then I’ll use the extra fabric that I have already and stitch it all together.
Thursday, April 18, 2019
I tried reincorporating the plastic straws in my halter neck but it seemed impossible. I stitched the pillow case together to make the top. I realized the cotton was too thin to wear it bra-less so I cut out another layer to make it more convenient.
Next I cut ribbon to make the straps and attached it to the top. I had used the ribbon for a project last semester, hence the blue color.
I got a design pattern off the Internet and used iron on transfer paper to print it on the cotton.
After it was all done, I made my friend try it on but the top was a bit too stiff on her because of the paper that I used. I sewed the fabric again by hand to make it fit her better. 
