6 ways to do clothing upcycling

You want to practice theupcycling ?

You like sewing, you sew your own clothes Or do those of your loved ones?

If you are sensitive to the Slow Fashion and a more responsible consumption mode, so you will love the practice ofclothing upcycling !

Through this article, we will better define what the upcycling in sewing is and offer you 6 ideas and solutions to do clothing upcycling!

Let's go !

What is clothing upcycling?

The etymological point

Called overcrowding In French, upcycling is an English word made up of terms:

« Up " And " cycling ».

Up means high in English and cycling refers to life cycles.

Everything having a lifespan, the idea will be to revive objects intended for the trash.

Here the idea will be to give new life to the clothes even though they arrived at the end of his life.

In short, the upcycling is top up, over-cycling.

For the little story of the upcycling

In reality, the upcycling is a very old practice, that our grandmothers and great grandmothers already practiced!

Repairing a garment is already upcycling.
Except that when our grannies repaired the socks or reused old clothes to make patchwork blankets, the more trendy upcycling word did not yet exist!

You have to wait until the 90s to see this new word appear.
And contrary to what one might think, the word does not come from the United States or from England but from Germany!

According to our research, the very first person who used the word upcycling was Reiner Pilz.

It was at the time of a German engineer and mechanic who was looking for new ideas to solve a still very current problem that is that of waste management.

He said, in short: instead of destroying, why would we not transform our waste into new objects?

This is where the term upcycling was born.

However, it is only part of our vocabulary for a very short time and there are still many people to raise awareness of the cause!

Upcycling is a form of recycling that is in full foot in a logic of circular and second -hand economy that is necessary to adopt without further delay.

Why do clothing upcycling?

There are hundreds of thousands of objects in the world that could be upcycled.

Among the most polluting industries, there are fashion and textile industries.

With 7 million tonnes of CO2 issued annually, or 10 % of global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), According to the figures provided by Climaseed , it is high time to act!

And, at My little coupon, We really think that seamstresses can make things happen!

Because, thanks to creativity and know-how in sewing, your possibilities are endless to revive lost materials and clothes!

If you are interested in the subject of upcycling in seam, you can also consult This article from our blog section. 

Upcycling clothing: 6 sewing ideas to change everything! 

In order to help you get into this approach, we have decided to give you, through this article, several couture ideas and inspirations that will allow you to make upcycling clothes more easily.

Through each of these couture inspirations, you can also better understand how we do upcycling in sewing and the challenges of such an approach!

We hope that these couture ideas will inspire very beautiful creations!

1. Sew new projects with old clothes

One of the most common practices when you do upcycling in sewing is to use what you already have in stock at home.

If, for example, you have damaged jeans, a holeed t-shirt, a pair of spun tights, a dress that doesn't suit you anymore, a task of tomato sauce that does not go to washing ...

In short, you understood: if you have a home clothing that you no longer wear, either because it does not suit you anymore, either because it is damaged, or because it is old -fashioned, you can Serve as a support for a new sewing project!

There are many ideas for recycling old jeans for example.

The jeans canvas being a very resistant and very solid material, it will be perfect for being sewn in a shopping bag, in a sports bag or backpack.

It's up to you to use creativity to give new life to your jeans.
If for example it is the bottom of jeans that you no longer like or who is damaged, you can completely transform your jeans into a new skirt!

Besides, if you like mini-skirts, we have written an article on the subject, that You can find here ! 

2. Sew new clothes in old bed sheets!

If you like the vintage style and the cupboards of your grannies are full of old sheets, flowery curtains, duvets, beds…

Use your imagination to divert them and use fabrics for your next Couture projects!

Often when you sew, you like to wear unique pieces.
And we guarantee that if you are sewing a new jacket in grannies, no one will have the same as you!

In addition, the flowers of the 60s.70 are one of the current trends.
Because yes, fashion is also cyclical.

She comes back, we reinvent her and patterns that we really found kitschs a few years ago are today terribly current.

Ready -to -wear brands like Sezane, for example, bring up to date the romantic flower style of our great grandmothers.

In addition, if you start sewing, cutting in sheets and curtains will allow you to train and make you progress quickly!

3. The patchwork trend

The trend of the patchwork has returned in force in recent years!
And for good reason: this is one of the most creative and more effective ways to do upcycling!

Thanks to the patchwork, you can sew several kinds of sewing projects, such as: for example:

- Traditional coverage in patchwork
- a multicolored jacket
- A skirt with a texture set
- a shopping bag
- a totebag
- a baby doll style dress

Not only are the possibilities infinite but in addition you can also play with a multitude of forms!

With the patchwork, you don't have to stick to the traditional squares! You can also imagine more modern, more graphic forms for making very trendy recovery sewing projects!

Likewise, to sew your upcycling project in patchwork, you can use an infinity of materials!

These are perfect sewing projects for Upcycler:
- Falls of fabrics! (if for example you have ordered a 3 -meter coupon and you have fabric, you can use your falls in a patchwork project)
- damaged clothes (you can completely imagine a patchwork made with old jeans)
- Household linen (have fun with your old sheets, curtains, duvet covers, etc.)
- fabrics from dormant stocks (like those that we offer you on our online store)

And if you want to start the upcycling of clothing by making patchwork, we have prepared for you a tutorial illustrated step by step, just here. 

4. Customize your old clothes

If you have a t-shirt that you do not wear because you don't like the color anymore or because there is a hole that you don't know how to fix, there are many ideas and solutions to customize your clothes!

You can, for example, to fill a hole in a garment or to hide a task that does not go to washing:
- Sew a new patch pocket with your fabric falls
- Make a pretty embroidery in the place for
- Discover the ancestral technique of Japanese embroidery: Sashiko
- Cut to replace with a new fabric and thus make a two -color garment
- Placing and sewing an applied, with, for example, your initials
- Put a thermocoling patch that will add a touch of style to your garment according to where the problem is
Among the other solutions that exists to customize an old garment, there is dyeing.

And you can even test the vegetable dye.

With a few flowers picked up in the garden or even peelings of onions or carrots, you can make vegetable dye yourself that will allow you to give new life to your clothes!

There are of course ready dyes that will make your life easier if you want to revive your old T-shirt for example.

In addition to being a solution to make upcycling clothing, the dye will allow you to use creativity, both to invent new colors with more or less daring mixtures but also to use techniques, as if by Example the tie and dye!

5. Sew clothes in second -hand fabrics

The second hand exists for clothes but it also exists for fabrics!

Many seamstresses are sorting in their fabric cupboards and reselling them in flea markets, chips of seamstresses, Vintéd, The good corner and other platforms dedicated to the second hand.

It also happens that there are fabrics in recycleries or in sales points Emmaus.

To make the upcycling of clothing according to this method, you have to take the time to hunt, to seek, to draw inspiration.

When we find second -hand fabric that we like, the footage is completely random and this is where our creativity comes into play!

How are we going to upgrade this second-hand fabric?

Chining second -hand fabrics is an approach that takes time, which must be done with desire and serenity and which enters the philosophy of the slow couture: A more responsible and more thoughtful seam, which we are talking about more particularly in this blog article.

We are often so proud and proud of us when we sewn a garment from second -hand fabrics!

6. Sewing clothes with fabrics from dormant stocks: the method My little coupon 

In France, as in Europe and as everywhere in the world, there are hundreds of thousands of meters of fabrics in dormant stocks that have been produced by the textile and fashion industries.

These fabrics are not used because they are part of the ends of collections, overproductions, sometimes even collections that have not worked well.

These are a lot of fabrics of haute couture houses, very good quality materials, which we find anywhere else.

What you need to know is that these fabrics, which take up a lot of space in sleeping stock warehouses, are mostly dedicated to being destroyed.

As you probably know, reusing fabrics already produced to sewing is much less polluting than producing new ones.

Also, at My little coupon, our mission is to be Your Upcycling Agents !

We put these fabrics from dormant stocks on the market so that you can revalue them through your sewing projects.

We therefore offer you a solution to sew clothes without producing new fabrics and to make, at the same time, clothing upcycling.

To discover our 3 -meter coupons ready to be upcycled, it's here!

Clothing upcycling: the end word

As you can see by reading this article, there are many solutions to make clothing upcycling.

We hope that our ideas will inspire you several sewing creations!

Do not hesitate to share them with us with the #Mylittleoupon and Register for the newsletter to preview in all of our private sales of fabrics ready to be upcycled!

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