We’re working hard to minimise our environmental impact by reducing, reusing and recycling where we can – and this also saves our customers money. Here’s how…
The Great British Sewing Bee last night highlighted the ‘3Rs’ by making a pair of zero waste trousers, turning cotton tote bags into tops and crochet blankets into beautiful made-to-measure outfits – so now seems like a good time to tell you about one of our new sewing courses coming up this autumn!
The GBSB also made me think about what we do as a little business in terms of the 3Rs and here’s what I’ve come up with:
We know our stuff – we will only ask you to purchase the right amount of fabric in the first place, so we’re not over-using and there should be very little waste in the first place. We can only do this after years of experience.
Any spare fabric that may be left over from jobs is always offered back to our customers (trust me, not all interior designers do this!) and we will advise you whether cushions or other smaller items can be made from this. This sometimes happens if we have had to order extra fabric for pattern matching. Alternatively smaller scraps are used in our craft classes and workshops or donated to local groups to use.
The bare minimum is thrown away – and even then, we make our own fabric ‘bin bags’ and take these to be recycled.
We love a good re-using project – we are more than happy to sew curtains alterations if you move house, or make curtains into Roman Blinds, depending on your requirements.
Due to our experience of not only interiors, but crafting techniques, we can make vintage pieces of fabric into bedspreads and so much more! So recycling can be achieved in many different ways.
And as winter approaches, we are well-versed at incorporating thermal interlining within our bespoke blinds and curtains to keep those fuel bills down when the cold weather (and hefty heating bills) return come the autumn.
We constantly aim to reduce our carbon footprint, we often walk to work, instead of using our cars; we have invested in biodegradable packaging; in the winter months we wear an extra jumper instead of turning the thermostat up….. we’re always looking into other ways to improve what we can do and make our environment a better place to be.
And we really like bees. The buzzy kind. As well as the creative kind. So we provide free wildflower seed mix when we do craft fairs.