Upcycling Expert - Annie Temmink

Annie Temmink

Annie completed her BA in sculpture and math from Davidson College in North Carolina, and received a Thomas J Watson Foundation Fellowship to travel independently for twelve months studying fashion and textiles.  From Indonesia to Japan, India to Uganda and Tanzania, she worked with village women, dove through sprawling second-hand markets and explored fashion in the world’s biggest cities and smallest towns.  The scope of her studies took her from preparing plants for organic dyes to exploring the factories that produce clothing for brand name stores.

Much of Annie’s inspiration comes from common or unwanted materials whose wide availability sparked her interest in recycling materials six years ago. Now she transforms repurposed clothing into sculpture for solo exhibitions and larger installations. Her work catches attention including that of trend forecasting companies in New York and private collectors on the east coast. Annie looks forward to blogging about her experiences and showing you how to create fabulous projects (clothing, jewelry and beyond) with materials from Goodwill.

Annie currently designs and makes clothing and accessories (and dances like-a-fool) in Charlottesville, Virginia. To learn more and to see Annie's projects visit: www.artemmink.com

Scarves for Mother’s Day!

Posted by Jamie Klinger-Krebs on May 7, 2014 3:16:00 PM

Mother's Day scarvesGoodwill has so many great gifts for Mother’s Day. From jewlery, and clothing, to paintings and scarves. But, if you have a little extra time this week, why not use some of the great materials at Goodwill to make a scarf for your mom? Not only are they fun to make, but your mom will love the time and care you took.

To get started on this project, take an afternoon and go to Goodwill. Browse through the scarves and silk shirts to see if any patterns catch your eye. You may want to combine several scarves into a patchwork, or cut up silk shirts to make a new pattern (silk is such a beautiful material, and it's much cheaper to make a silk scarf by hand than to buy one).

You will need:

-Scarves, silk shirts, or lightweight cotton material from Goodwill.

-Thread, a template to trace, scissors.

-Spray starch will be helpful if you are sewing chiffon or other breezy silks that tend to want to float away.

Mother's DayThe great thing about scarves is that you can design them however you want. If you find a great piece of fabric, you can sew a simple hem around the edge and be done. If you find a few fabrics that you want to combine, you may want to consider doing a patchwork. This can be time consuming, or very simple depending on the intricacy of your design. I will show you a few techniques I used on this scarf and then you can make up your own designs.

For this design I didn’t make a pattern, but instead worked on the fly (sometimes I like to be improvisational). I began by cutting out triangles from a silk chiffon and a bright yellow fabric. Chiffon is Mother's Day scarvesnotoriously challenging to work with, but if you spray it with starch and iron it on the silk setting, I find it is much more managable. Next I sewed my triangles together in the middle. 

Mother's Day scarvesAfter sewing, I trimmed the seam. Next, I flipped the fabric triangles to the opposite side so that I could encase that seam with another row of stiches (to make a french seam so that edges won’t fray). 

Mother's Day scarvesI made four squares like this, and then added a small stripe of silk between each pair. I then joined each half with a final stripe.

To bind the edges, I used hem tape, but you could also simply fold the edges under and stitch. I attached my square to a larger piece of linen to make a bigger scarf, but you might want to use another scarf as a backing, or maybe you’ll decide you want to turn yours into a pillow or decorative wall hanging … all of these would make a great gifts for your mom!

Mother's DayAgain, you can make this project as complicated or as simple as you’d like, this is just ne idea, but you never know what you’ll find at Goodwill, so be open to inspiration and see what catches your attention!

Happy Mother’s Day mom (and all moms out there)!

Topics: upcycle, Mother's Day, Annie Temmink, mom, moms, scarves