The Process!
Howdy folks! Making this post because sometimes it’s easy to scroll through photos without stopping to absorb the artistry and craftsmanship that goes into pieces designed by the hands of just one person.
This is a call to pause, to reflect, to contemplate, to appreciate!
Every single item under the Lorelei brand was made by just one person, me! It takes A LOT of time and effort to work with upcycled materials and natural dyes, but it’s worth it.
Hop on for the ride as I guide you through all the steps along the way!
I spend many hours at yard sales and thrift stores scouring for natural fibres to take back to the studio to be transformed. The factors involved in selecting materials include fabric type, weight, print/colour, price, and the size of the fabric bolt/piece. I wade through a sea of icky polyester on every trip looking for natural fibres to dye and stitch with.
After the fibres come home with me they are sorted by fibre type, then washed. Next comes scouring if they’re going to be dyed! This is a preparatory process to help with the uptake of natural dyes. You’re essentially stripping the fibres of waxes, oils, and dirt that hinder the absorption of colour. For cellulose fibres (which is mostly what I work with) I boil the fibres in soda ash (washing soda). This process takes about an hour, and if the water is really dark afterwards, I rinse and repeat this step. Once the fibres are scoured, it’s time to thoroughly rinse them.
Now we’re ready to dye them right?! Nope!
Next step is to mordant your fibres. Because I use mostly cellulose fibres and silk (I’m allergic to wool so we don’t play together very often), I use an alum acetate bath in the mordant process. The mordant bath is heated until it’s hot but not boiling, I empty the pots into a big rubbermaid bin where I will gently lower all of the fibres to have a soak. This process takes 24-48 hours of soaking. After the mordant process, I put the wet fibres into the washer just on a spin cycle to remove excess mordant.
Ok! Now we can dye right?! Yes, sort of, but where do I get all of this colour from?
Sourcing dyes takes a heck of a lot of time, energy, and money. If using dye extracts, I purchase through Maiwa based out of Vancouver. These run a pretty hefty cost when working on a larger scale. On average a Maiwa order sets me back about $200. Urban foraging for fallen foliage is a great way to find colour too, using the hues of the ever changing seasons. I’ve also partnered with some local florists here in Victoria to rummage around in their greens waste bins for cut offs that I can glean colour from. I will also purchase fresh and dried flowers from farmers to use in eco printing. On top of all of this, I grow a dye garden for fresh blossoms in the summer months. What a process, and we haven’t even started dyeing yet! Does she sleep?
From here, I make some decisions about what I’d like to do with the fibres. Do I want to eco print? Do I want to immersion dye? Both? Will I use resist dyeing techniques? Will I be building layers by eco printing multiple times, then adding to an immersion bath? Arranging and steaming and dyeing just a few bolts of cloth takes up an entire day usually. Sometimes the piece of cloth you wear has been printed and/or over dyed up to 5 times! After dyeing, the cloth is then washed, dried, and ironed. Ready to start in with the pattern cutting and sewing process, finally!
I design all of my own patterns and often work intuitively without a standard pattern. Because I work with smaller, one off pieces and bolts of fabric each piece is unique and one of a kind. I usually only get 1-4 larger projects out of a piece of fabric. Any excess cuttings are sorted by size into my scraps bins to be pieced together on a later date. Some things that I make using the scraps cuttings include zip pouches, kerchiefs, and tote bags. Anything that is too small to be stitched into another project goes into my teeny tiny scraps bin to be used as stuffing for pillows/poufs. Literally zero waste.
Sewing is another long and labour intensive step in the process. Designing a pattern, sewing test batches, and altering them until they’re just right. Once that step is out of the way it’s time to cut out the patterns for all of the fibres that await stitching. Cutting and attaching bias binding, adding darts, finishing hems and necklines, ironing! Now we’re ready to get these out to the world.
But first!
I will photograph everything, edit photos, upload them to a website, write clever descriptions, take measurements for sizing references, and finally when you hit add to cart and pay, it’s off to the post office to ship them out.
All of this is done by one person!
Let us not forget to include the cost of studio rent, materials, gas to get around, machine maintenance, website and vendor fees, infrastructure and displays for markets, the college courses I paid for to learn these skills, and the immense amount of time and energy I’ve poured into developing skills through mistakes and experimentation over the past 10 years.
So there you have it folks! I absolutely adore this practice and running this business. I literally live for this! But I really wanted to clarify how much labour, education, skill, and money goes into running it and why I price things the way I do. I ain’t rich, but I’m aiming to support myself doing what I love and bringing you all sustainable fashion that makes your heart sing!
I hope you’ve gleaned some insight into the process of producing a line of sustainable textiles. A labour of love it is and I’m so gosh darn happy to make these wares for you!!
xo
Carly
