Latest news with #sewing
CBC
3 days ago
- Business
- CBC
Come inside the century-old Montreal sewing supply shop that's now a pop-up exhibit
For 100 years the H. Fisher & Fils Montreal sewing supply shop operated on the city's storied St-Laurent Boulevard. Now the Museum of Jewish Montreal has reopened it as an exhibit paying tribute to the city's garment industry.
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Get to know Manchester contestant ahead of stint on The Great British Sewing Bee
The Great British Sewing Bee is back, and one of the contestants is from Manchester. Amateur sewers will hope they've got what it takes to make it to this year's final and ultimately be crowned the champion. Here's what we know about the Manchester contestant and the new series. What to Watch explained: 'Kit grew up in Surrey with their parents, brother and sister. In primary school, their mother started teaching their sister to sew sock puppets, so Kit taught themself out of spite. 'Kit then tried to sell their creations at school and got in trouble for trying to start a business! They picked up the hobby again at uni and have since been making a garment every week. 'Kit will often explore a haberdashery and look for the most 'awful' fabrics, on a mission to turn them into something beautiful. Kit also enjoys something (they call) 'pointless fashion', describing this style as 'so camp! Wearing something so utterly useless but looking fabulous'. Kit's 'pointless' concepts range from mesh hoodies to a coat held together with chains.' Prima explains that Kit now 'lives and works in Manchester'. If you've not watched the series before, here's how it works, according to What to Watch: 'Each week, the contestants must take part in three challenges: a Pattern Challenge to test their basic dressmaking skills, a Transformation Challenge to assess their creativity, plus a Made To Measure Challenge to create a bespoke garment. 'One contestant's creation is awarded Garment Of The Week by the judges, and another is sent home from the competition. 'The grand final sees the remaining three sewers battle it out to be crowned the winner.' You can watch the first episode of the 11th series of The Great British Sewing Bee on Tuesday, July 15 at 9pm on BBC One and iPlayer. Recommended reading: Get to know Yaz the Mancunian 'disruptor' entering Love Island for Casa Amor Film crews back in Bolton town centre for new gripping crime drama The most popular filming locations across Bolton Last year, Luke was revealed as the winner of The Great British Sewing Bee 2024 and described their victory as 'absolutely wild'. Luke, also from Manchester, beat Pascha and Ailsa in the final, which saw contestants tasked with creating opera gloves for the red carpet and transforming decorations into a party garment. The contestant made it through 10 weeks of sewing challenges to be named Britain's best amateur sewer, winning garment of the week for their loungewear in diva week.
Irish Times
14-07-2025
- General
- Irish Times
There's a feminist argument against a writer spending time cooking and sewing, but it pleases me
I've had the sewing machine out for the first time in a while this week. For months I'd been hankering to make a dress, for no discernible reason. The pattern is in a Japanese book I've had for years without going further than thinking that one day I might like to make that, and there is no definition of 'need' that would include my possession of a new dress. Even so, one of my vague projects for this year – career break, turning 50 – is occasionally to do things because I feel like it. The career break is of course a rare luxury, but on whatever scale it's possible to follow the odd harmless whim, I recommend it. I learned to use a sewing machine as a child. My mother made most of our clothes, and passed on her skills. As a teenager, with the brazen confidence of someone who doesn't know what's supposed to be difficult, I embarked on whatever stood between me and the item of clothing I had in mind. I cut and sewed dresses on the bias, became confident with the strange geometry of the crotch seams of trousers and the counterintuitive curves of sleeve-heads. I added pockets and linings when I wanted them, learned the hard way which fabrics suited which designs. There is no need, now, for me to make my own clothes. For years it was a choice between buying poor quality and making good quality; we can all afford badly made fast fashion but I had learned to respect natural fibres and French double seams. These days I can buy durable, well-made clothes, but I still knit my own jumpers and apparently, this week, sew my own dresses. I know a couple of my friends think it's a waste of time, all this handicraft. There's an obvious feminist argument against a writer spending her time cooking and sewing. Still, it pleases me. READ MORE Making things yourself only sometimes, unpredictably, gives you better than you can buy. (Home-made pitta bread is revelatory. See also hummus, crackers and rice pudding.) But the professionals are often better at it, and it's certainly cheaper to buy even the poshest jam than devote an afternoon to fruit-picking and an evening, a lot of sugar and a lot of electricity to making your own, which may or may not turn out well. Price my time at minimum wage, add materials, and the dress-in-progress has already cost more than buying a ready-to-wear equivalent. You could plausibly argue that by doing these things myself, I'm depriving the sustainable small businesses from which I would otherwise buy. But that's not it. Making things isn't about penny-pinching. And I don't think cooking or sewing, or for the matter of that carpentry or wood-turning, are intrinsically moral acts. Maybe it's a declaration of independence, and certainly there's temptation to keep going down the production process; my mother now grows the plants to dye the yarn she spins to weave scarves and towels. I have a friend who progressed from making bread to feeding sourdough to grinding flour, and he daydreams of growing the grain. Some of my own cooking experiments have seemed absurd even to me; I'm sure efficiency comes with practice but the time it took me to make enough tortellini for a dinner party, including making the pasta dough and rolling it by hand, was wildly out of proportion to the time it took my friends to eat it. Never again. I feel similarly about sewing my own underwear and maybe knitting my own socks, though I know people who do both. [ Sarah Moss: 'I'm a classic first child. A driven overachiever. Slightly neurotic' Opens in new window ] If the pleasure of this kind of make-do-and-mend is not about saving money, the planet or achieving independence from consumerism, what is it? Something about knowing how things work, how the objects we handle and need and love are made; something about being able to make things well, or at least making them badly often enough to learn respect for good makers. There are places for machines, technology, software. I don't want to ride in an artisanal handmade helicopter and if I were to need a ventilator or pacemaker, I'd want the latest tech. Dishwashers, vacuum cleaners and washing machines are obvious godsends to those of us who have lived without them. But I have a deep sense that it's good to know with your hands and your body where things come from and how they are made.
ABC News
11-07-2025
- General
- ABC News
Traditional textile skills provide work opportunity for Afghan refugees
Hakimeh Rahimi has always wanted to be a fashion designer. "My mum was always encouraging me … [and] I learnt to make clothes and dresses and things like that," she said. Ms Rahimi grew up in Afghanistan, but her family was forced to flee to Iran when the Taliban took over in the 1990s. Still a child when she fled as a refugee, she was unable to attend high school, limiting her opportunity to pursue the career she longed for in textiles. Despite this, she continued her craft and brought it with her when she and her husband came as refugees to Australia in 2014. Ms Rahimi now lives in Wagga Wagga, in southern New South Wales, and has made curtains and blinds for a local business, but an injury means she can no longer use scissors. She still aspires to open a sewing shop, and is hopeful treatment will mean she can work with her hands again. Ms Rahimi said the language barrier impacted on the confidence of many Afghan women, while other people with a similar background dismissed their skills as common because sewing was a significant part of their culture. "Some people think because in Afghanistan, everybody knows how to do embroidery, it's not that important. So when I ask, 'Can you do embroidery?' They ask, 'Who's going to buy it?'" A new initiative run by the Wagga Wagga City Council hopes to answer that question, while boosting language skills and fostering work opportunities. The Mending People project seeks to unite refugees with others in the Wagga community based on a common love for stitchery. Participants collaborate to make blanket banners and learn mending and stitching skills from cultures all around the world. Ms Rahimi is hopeful the project will give other refugees the confidence to pursue careers in textiles, because it connects them with the broader community over a shared love. Afghan refugee Rogayeh Uzbak is teaching others stitchery through the project. She also grew up in Iran after her family members fled their homeland. Speaking through an interpreter, she said she grew up in a "misogynistic" family that would not allow her to pursue her interest in stitching, weaving and knitting. She said at the age of 13 she was forcibly married to a 50-year-old man who would not allow her to work, but she was able to hone her skills and sell some of her work. After emigrating to Australia in 2023, Ms Uzbak continued to use her craft and now teaches others through workshops, which makes her "very excited". Migration researcher at the Universities of Melbourne and Wollongong Eliza Crosbie said language was a barrier for refugees looking for work when they arrived in Australia. "Often not being able to communicate is a barrier, which can see people entering into roles where the language isn't as important," she said. "We conducted a survey with 600 former refugees and found that primarily a lot of them were working in meatworks and cleaning." Dr Crosbie said while some refugees came to Australia with skills, they might not be recognised. "They are not often either given the opportunity to demonstrate their skills or given the help to get the certification or transfer their skills," she said. Dr Crosbie said the Paw Po textiles social enterprise at Nhill, in regional Victoria, had been successful in helping refugees transfer their skills. Founded in 2015, Paw Po began teaching English to Karen refugee women from Myanmar, before moving to sewing. "The women started to express that they wanted to learn skills that would give them further opportunities," Paw Po program manager Annette Creek said. The business produces a range of practical products ranging from bags to oven mitts, cushions, backpacks and face masks. Ms Creek said they kept connections with the Karen people by sourcing fabrics from Thai refugee camps. "Often these women have come straight from refugee camps, and this is a really incredibly valuable way to incorporate them into the community," she said.
BBC News
08-07-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Female-led aerospace sewing firm in Somerset is expanding
A small female-led family firm has said it is "surreal" to have grown into industry leaders in sewing work for commercial and defence its inception in 2018, textiles firm Needles and Pins Aerospace has specialised in high precision needlework for applications such as the linings of Chinook company in Somerton, Somerset, is now expanding its team of 16 by hiring four more staff. It also opened a new, larger production facility earlier in executive Carole Champion said she started the company using a credit card in 2018 and never looked back after developing relationships with business giants Leonardo and Boeing. "We started off with literally two women and a couple of old sewing machines," Ms Champion said. "It feels surreal knowing how much we've grown. We've made amazing steps into the aviation industry from such small, humble beginnings."It's definitely a male-orientated industry, but that is changing and I think you really have to believe in your team, be it male or female," she Champion said while industrial sewing is not the most attractive job, there is "creativity" in it. Managing director of Boeing Defence UK, Steve Burnell, said partnering with small organisations was part of the company's ethos."They make us a product that fits out the cabin and makes it quieter and more comfortable," he said."If you look at the South West alone, we have well over 90 suppliers and partners and half of those are smaller enterprises. "You can't grow unless you are bringing early-career people into the industry and giving them the skills they need to grow."
