Sustainable Fashion: Upcycle, Recycle and Creative Mending - Sydney Course

Slow Fashion is the new trend, but with more style!

If you are an advocate for environmental and social justice in the fashion industry, and want to learn the skills to upcycle or recycle your clothing and have basic sewing skills, then this course is for you!

Do you have some jeans you love, but they need mending? Do you have a dress that needs to be altered and upcycled?

Come along and join the Creative Mending & Sustainable Fashion course!

Macquarie Community College operates from a range of venues across Northern and Western Sydney. We have campuses in Blacktown, Carlingford, Chatswood, Epping, Mt Druitt, Richmond, and Ryde. Enrol now!

Course Outline

In this course, you will:

• learn a short introduction to fabric and yarn hand stitching.
• explore ways on how to upstyle T-shirts.
• discover some of the different skills to upcycle.
• explore and improvise more ways to be stylish with both old and new garments.
• briefly cover some techniques (however, we will not be covering any or all of these skills in any detail):
  • hand sewing
  • fabric and yarns 101
  • restyling basics
  • darning
  • embroidery
  • crochet
  • applique
  • felting
  • patching
  • dyeing and Shibori
  • knitting
  • Japanese Boro
  • basic pattern alterations

Course Outcome

By the end of the course, students will:

• have a greater understanding of how to clothe yourself and your family in a way that will be kinder to our planet earth. 
• have new skills, but new ideas on how to make a difference in the environment.
• celebrate your sustainable achievements with a wonderful sustainable fashion show.

What to Bring

You will need to bring:

• bring your own kit for hand-sewing. This will include a range of needles: A standard sewing needle (such as sharps), an embroidery needle (such as crewels where the eye is large enough to take bulkier threads, but has a sharp point), if you have larger needles such as tapestry and/or hard-to-source Japanese Sashiko ones, bring them too.
• a selection of threads to go with the needles: so standard sewing thread, and thicker threads that will fit through the eye of your embroidery, or similar needles
• scissors: essential to have scissors to cut fabric, ideal if you also have smaller scissors and snippers as well
• an unpicker
• different coloured threads
• buttons
• beads
• patchwork pieces
• assorted fabric scraps

In the first lesson we will discuss your personal projects, and what equipment to bring to best support your creativity.in the following weeks. It is anticipated that you will need a sewing machine, if you have one, do bring it.

Prerequisite: Desirable

Essential to have basic sewing skills and machine sewing skills. This is a creative journey, so bring your imagination along with your other skills! 

Important Information

Please note: You will need access to the internet and a smartphone, tablet, computer or laptop in order to participate in the livestream video classes.

Delivery Mode

Classroom based: experienced and engaging trainers will take you through the course material face to face.

Classroom based learning for this course includes:

• Scheduled class times and sessions
• Interaction with your trainer and other students

Macquarie Community College operates from a range of venues across Northern and Western Sydney. We have campuses in Blacktown, Carlingford, Chatswood, Epping, Mt Druitt, Richmond, and Ryde. Enrol now!