We The Makers CREATE offers new courses

The We The Makers CREATE initiative is offering new courses for people to be inspired, learn new skills and start to help reduce the environmental impact of the fashion industry.

Access to these courses – part of the We The Makers Design Festival – are free thanks to the support from the National Wool Museum and the City of Greater Geelong, helping artists and participants during the pandemic.

Join skilled artists from Victoria to learn in detail sustainable fashion techniques you can apply at home. Enhance your wardrobe and reduce your impact, and complete courses at your own pace.

Designer Showcase finalist Ana Fernanda Covarrubias will make you fall in love with your old T-shirts again with her course on how to refashion a T-shirt. Follow her step-by-step guide to learn how to turn a T-shirt into a funky neck-piece. Refashioning is a great way to reduce your fashion waste and diversify your wardrobe.

Join Ruth Woods from Craft School Oz to learn a range of creative mending techniques. Discover how to give your clothes longevity and a touch of personality. This course will give you the skills to mend and patch for both functionality and style.

Think outside of box and creatively repurpose electrical wire into bespoke jewellery. Learn fundamental jewellery making techniques from artist Vivian Qiu and discover ways to be more creative about jewellery design.

We The Makers CREATE’s Inspiration @ Home section features a range of artists, makers and custodians of cultural arts to inspire people to get creative with textiles.

One of these is regional Victorian artist and maker Megan Anderson, who will guide you through the steps to make a simple three-layered face mask with ties. You can use materials you have at home to make this mask. Megan uses two layers of cotton fabric and iron-on interfacing. We The Makers CREATE notes that while this mask design offer basic community protection, it is not medical grade, and encourages people to head to dhhs.vic.gov.au/coronavirus to see the recommendations on making and wearing masks.

Other techniques in Inspiration @ Home include Iraqi embroidery and Karen weaving.

If you’ve been making, share your wearable or textile-based creations in the public gallery and inspire others along their making journey.

For more information, head to wethemakerscreate.com.au.

For more information on the We The Makers Design Festival, head to wethemakers2020.com.au.