{getting STRANDED!}

{OBJECTIVE!} cut out a long strand from any shaped 2-d peice of fabric!
{MATERIALS!} any medium-large peice of scrap fabric, self-healing mat, rotary cutter

{1} {GATHER} materials

{2} {MAZES} Start cut at one end and cut lengthwise careful not to cut through the other end. Stop at the distance equal to the width of your cut. Start again on that side beginning a new lengthwise cut and stop again at the alternating end. Zig zag like drawing a maze back and forth.

my fabric was nice and big for a change, but this is great for scraplings, and can be used for looming, crochet, knitting, exsets.

{3} {GATHER} a skein by tugging the set in the center and wrapping with a scrap! Beginning a loop for your crochettis right away will help you find the end when you are going to work!

{4} {MAKE CLOTH-THINGS!} to see what I made, click HERE!


These necklaces are available at LOOK NOOK and as CUSTOM

xx,
vivi

{Mother Nature Network!} look nook in the media

This summer I spoke to student workers at the Milwaukee Business Investment Bureau about how you can be an earth friendly entrepreneur with out having to pull weeds and plant trees. I set up a powerpoint lecture, spoke for an hour two times in a lecture hall, and then the kids got to come to the LOOK NOOK in groups to see my shop and production area, learn to make buttons, crochet, and screenprint! It was awesome. I just googled the LOOK NOOK and found an article that was written by Allie Taylor, a local correspondant for the Mother Nature Network regarding my work! I feel so happy to be a part of a group of people working for a brighter future! Here are the parts of the article about it, which you can read in it's entirety HERE

"Repurposing clothing
Moving away from fertilizer-type recycling, the third count of Milwaukee's alternative recycling is found at Madam Chino's Look Nook. The Look Nook's founder, Vanessa Andrew, recently spoke to a group of high school students interested in environmental conservation. While explaining her business of buying used T-shirts and reconfiguring them into stylish dresses, she gracefully stitched together ideas of
consumer culture, economics, recycling, art, and entrepreneurialism. Reusing old fabrics for new clothes or completely new objects like patches or wall art, Andrew is pushing commonly held notions of fashion while engaging in a low-impact model of society. One reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said:

"One of Andrew's fortes is repurposing old things in creative, even conceptual, ways. Who would have thought that an old pair of women's tights could be transformed into a stretchy top, a bundle of '80s sweaters into a hoodie or a pair of old keys into earrings?"

Vanessa Andrew thought of making a new shirt out of old nylons. Will Allen, founder of Growing Power, probably thought of transporting local food waste to make richer soil. O.J. Noer studied the properties and benefits of Milorganite in the 1920s. It is thanks to these three creative thinkers, among many more, I'm sure, that we are all inspired to reinvent the idea of recycling and push us to become greener and greener."

xx,
vv