Guest Post by Javita

Thank you everyone for your lovely and wonderful comments on my last post! Javita and I are very excited about the Weaving Destination social enterprise.  Today, I hope you will join me in welcoming a very special guest post from Javita!

Thanks Debi for such a wonderful and apt introduction of our association, social enterprise and me. You are certainly a superwoman. My heartfelt thanks to all the readers for their wonderful thoughts, wishes and suggestions. Very encouraging and helpful indeed!

When Debi asked me to introduce myself on her blog, I was excited to tell about myself and meet the wonderful community associated with her through her blog. But, my first thought was what should I write about myself?..where should I begin from?..and what is really my inspiration? I guess two words describe me and my inspiration to do this work - ‘Creating Opportunities!’

 Women who work in the sewing unit at Weaving Destination

Being a female in a patriarchal world of India, my personal journey has been about creating opportunities for myself to grow, to realize my full potential, to travel, to get educated, to find a meaningful employment and career. Something that I had that enabled me create opportunities and find my path of possibilities and opportunities was a comfortable life style in the Capital of India, Delhi and blessings from the Divine. However, many women in India struggle to find their feet in a patriarchal and a gender discriminatory social system coupled with other vulnerability causing situations such as poverty, violence and abuse, and other adverse environmental conditions such as conflicts, natural calamities and lack of appropriate support systems.     

A glimpse inside the Weaving Destination centre Anthaigwlao Village, BTC, Assam

My personal journey of creating opportunities for myself and standing up for my rights transgressed to public and political spheres with my first job after my Graduation in Psychology Honours and Masters in Social Work. I worked for eight years with a Violence Intervention Centre called Sakshi in New Delhi and worked extensively in protecting and promoting the rights of women and children and providing counselling support to women and child survivors of different forms of abuse (physical, domestic and sexual abuse). Further, I went on to work as a consultant with the United Nations (UN) agencies such as the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Children's Fund and UN Women and other national and international organizations such as the Airport Authority of India, American Centre for International Labour Solidarity and the South Asia Gender Equity Programme on issues of human trafficking, sexual harassment at the work place, child protection and participation and child and adolescent development. I had the privilege of traveling extensively for education and work, within India and internationally, which expanded my world view, horizon and networks.   

Sorry for the blurry picture...this is me (Javita) with two of the women weavers

 

In 2004, my husband and I decided to set up NEDAN Foundation - a charity organization (commonly known as non-government organization/ NGO in India) in Kokrajhar, Assam, North East India - an area marked by poverty, ongoing conflict and naturally calamities. Being the birth place of my husband Digambar Narzary, we recognized the vulnerability of the indigenous women, youth and children to human trafficking, exploitation and primarily lack of opportunities and possibilities for a viable livelihood and employment. This kept them entrenched in the cycle of poverty and exploitation. Further the environmental and geographic conditions of North East India bordering Bhutan, Myanmar, Tibet, Bangladesh and Nepal created conditions of human trafficking with open, porous borders and lack of sufficient vigilance. This is how the roots of the Social Enterprise began - to create income generation and livelihood opportunities for indigenous women from the area including survivors of human trafficking and returnee migrants - for their economic and social empowerment.  From a small income generation project through involving home-based skilled women weavers from the Bodo community of Kokrajhar District in Assam at the inception of NEDAN Foundation in 2004, a Social Enterprise called Weaving Destination took shape.

Women weavers with their children - Celebration at the Weaving Destination Centre

Today Weaving Destination includes three weaving centers in remote villages of the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC), Kokrajhar, Assam; a sewing unit; and a group of females trained in yarn extraction. Besides the 65 women engaged in the three weaving centers, many more have been trained and are employed in the sewing unit and yarn extraction process. One of the young women trained at the sewing unit runs her own sewing training centre with support from NEDAN Foundation. Engaging and empowering women - economically and socially - feeds back to empowering families and communities they belong to. The Weaving Destination is a social enterprise primarily for creating employment and livelihood opportunity for ethnic, indigenous local women. NEDAN Foundation - the charity organization, on the other hand, with a few international grants and revenue generated from the Weaving Destination works towards other significant issues in the area such as child protection, education, health, peace building and overall community development aspects in the villages the women come from and where the weaving centers have been established.

 Extracting the yarn prior to weaving

Together with Debi, I envision a world full of opportunities and possibilities for the women sitting and weaving in small, remote villages of the BTC and many other women like them who would not be able to fulfill their dreams and achieve their goals of self sufficiency and a contented life for themselves and their families without support from other women (and men) who have ‘made it‘ for themselves. In doing so, we also hope to create opportunities for all of us here connected to each other globally, to feel the hopes, aspirations and joys of women weavers through their beautiful organic, handwoven (more on this in subsequent posts) colourful fabrics and be blessed in the process!!

Yarn being laid out for weaving

Meeting Debi and David in Edinburgh has been one of the most beautiful experiences of being in here over past one year. Thanks for their beautiful friendship and such a meaningful partnership. 

My Biggest Sewing News To Date...

I’ve been looking forward to sharing with all of you my most exciting sewing news to date!  I’m starting a social enterprise!!!  What’s a social enterprise you may ask?  It’s defined by the UK government as “businesses with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or in the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders or owners”.

But first, let me start at the beginning….

This summer I signed-up for a free workshop run over the course of three weekends through the University called ‘Ingenious Women.’  The workshop was described as promoting entrepreneurial thinking in the workplace.  The weekends covered the three main topics of creativity, cash and control.  Intrigued, I sent in an application to attend the course.  I heard I was on the waiting list to attend but very quickly after that I got my acceptance letter for the course!

I didn’t know anyone ahead of time who was attending the course, so on the first day…I showed up for the bus and met lots of other women around my age and I knew straight away it was going to be an amazing experience.  In the crowd I did see one woman I knew….and her name was Javita.  Javita is doing her PhD at the University and we had met up a couple of times previously to talk about her PhD work.  Straight away Javita and I connected.  She’s doing her PhD on therapeutic approaches for working with children who have experienced child sexual abuse.  After speaking with Javita about her work in India and the not-for-profit organization she started there with her husband called the Nedan Foundation, I knew she was an amazing woman. Just through talking over coffee I felt that we were bringing out the passion in each other for the work that we do.  In the words of Anne of Green Gables…we were definitely ‘kindred spirits’.

Javita and I

So I was delighted to see Javita at the bus-stop.  Little did I know in less than 3 hours an idea would be born that would see us starting a social enterprise together….

Our first activity at the Ingenious Women workshop was called our ‘deadly 50’.  We had to introduce ourselves to the other participants (about 25 other women) using just 50 words that explained what we hoped to get out of the workshop.  Here’s my ‘deadly 50’:

My name is Debi and during the day I’m a researcher who focuses on preventing violence against women and children and in the evenings I’m an active blogger and seamstress.  I would love to combine these two passions and hope to explore through this course different ideas on ways to do this.

The crazy thing?  Not more than 10 people later…Javita stood up and gave her ‘deadly 50’ introduction.  She talked about the Nedan Foundation but she also talked about an initiative that has been going since 2008 called ‘Weaving Destination’ which builds upon the weaving tradition in Northeast India (which is very similar to the one in Scotland except in India all the weavers are women).  What started as a women’s weaving collective with capital funding from the UN to develop a weaving center (using women’s own home-based looms) is now an initiative with three centers which employs 65 women.  All of these women come from the indigenous Bodo communities in Assam, India.  Due to the region’s location in the Northeast of India (bordering Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar and China), Assam suffers very high rates of human trafficking especially among indigenous communities.  All of the women employed through Weaving Destination are either survivors of human trafficking, living with HIV/AIDS or are female migrant returnees who are highly vulnerable to re-trafficking, social exclusion and poverty.

The times we had met, I'd never told Javita about my hobby of sewing and she'd never mentioned the Weaving Destination!  So when I gave my introduction, I saw her mouth fall open.  And when she gave hers my mouth fell open!  The instructor actually stopped and said ‘You two need to talk to each other’! And talk we did!  In fact, we couldn’t stop talking to each other!!!  Every workshop we were in the corner discussing plans to merge our work and start a social enterprise in the UK. 

The goal?  To promote the finest ethical silk (OH YES—Ethical Silk…more on that to come), vintage and local-inspired cotton print fabrics and products hand-woven by indigenous women from Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC), Assam, India to the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) and sewing communities in Scotland and globally.  And to reinvest 100% of the profits back into Weaving Destination and the charitable work of Nedan Foundation for work in the community to end trafficking and to provide sustainable livelihoods for indigenous women and their families.

Freakin’ awesome right??

So during the summer and autumn, Javita and I have been hard at work.  Starting a business and especially a social enterprise is hard work.  But I feel so incredibly blessed because Javita and I have so much fun together.  We get on so well and having a partner to run ideas by and work through things together has been so amazing.

We were recently awarded the Social Innovation Incubator Award from the Melting Pot, which is Scotland’s premiere social enterprise hub.  We were blown away—all of the support we have received has been amazing.  This award provides us with a year’s worth of social enterprise business training, personal coaching, and workspace including use of a phone and laptop!!! 

Now you may be thinking:  Didn’t you just get a promotion at your job?  Oh yes! And I have no plans on leaving my day job; I absolutely love it.  This will be an après work project.  The melting pot is open late on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Javita and I spend from 5-9pm there every week plus lots of weekend work.  And I am absolutely loving it!!  I have never been so fired-up in my life.  I truly believe this work will make a difference in ending trafficking and violence against women and girls in this region and at the same time will provide fab-u-lous fabrics to those of us who are in our own ways developing a new culture of creativity and consumerism through our sewing.

A sneak peek at one of the Weaving Destination handwoven scarves

I am SO excited to share this news with all of you….many more details and posts to come!  We do have some finished products we will be selling—mainly scarves that we hope to have up on Etsy at the beginning of December.  I’ve been busy working with Javita and the weavers on fabric designs and we’ll be launching our own website and a fabric collection in the New Year!  We also hope to do some bespoke fabric collections and finished products (an example being conference bags, etc.) and are so interested in hearing from you if you have ideas for potential collaborations!  Most of all, it would be great if you could spread the word!  Thank you all for all your lovely words of support!!

Pattern Pyramid Giveaway and the Power of Perseverance

This is a story of love, obsession and heartbreak...and most of all, the story of perseverance.  Meet Economy Design 157:

How graceful, beautiful and fragile.  My love and ultimate obsession with this pattern begin when Karen of Did You Make That posted the novel idea of the Pattern Pyramid.  She had a bunch of patterns she got and hosted a giveaway where she split them into several bundles and sent them onto the winners.  The winners would pick one pattern and then host their own giveaway.  So on and so on until all the patterns had been won and welcomed into loving homes.

Among the original patterns was Economy Design 157--so unlike all the other patterns.  And so it began.  I commented on the original Pattern Pyramid giveaway post over at Karen's blog:

I missed the deadline for the giveaway over at Sew Brunswick who won the original lot including the Economy Design 157 pattern from Karen. Then the Pattern Pyramid made it's way over to the lovely Seersucker Sally and she was deciding between keeping the New Look pattern and the Economy Design pattern and....phew! She chose the New Look pattern.  Here's my comment on her giveaway:

Then the patterns traveled to Tiffany in Seattle.  I missed her giveaway which was won by Kat in Wellington, New Zealand who blogs over  at Modern Vintage Cupcakes.  Kat decided to keep the Economy Design pattern (sob!) but I entered the giveaway anyway.....

I get the patterns in the mail and what do I find?????  The Economy Design pattern!! Turns out that at the last minute Kat opted to keep the Simplicity 3661 pattern from 1951 instead of the Economy Design pattern! I was OVER THE MOON!  To say I love this pattern would be an understatement...I have literally tracked it around the world and can't believe that after the roller coaster Pattern Pyramid ride that it now calls My Happy Sewing Place home....

Don't you just love fairy tale endings?  Now's your chance.  Up for grabs in this 6th round of the Pattern Pyramid are the original patterns:

The Sewaholic Alma Blouse was added in Round 4 by the lovely Tiffany:

And in celebration, I am adding 3 more patterns to the Pattern Pyramid Giveaway (I anticipate this giveaway will be going strong for at least another year!!!).  First up is this adorable 1974 McCall's pattern for summer tops (which, um, I will never sew for the Scottish climate!):

This adorable pinafore/jumper pattern from 1968:

And the best of all....This stunning 1952 Vogue pattern:

To Enter the Giveaway

Just leave a comment below to enter and let me know which pattern you'd like to keep.  All the patterns will be mailed to you, you keep one and then hold a giveaway and mail them onto someone else!  I will ship anywhere in the world.  I'll randomly pick a winner on Thanksgiving Day (Thursday the 22nd).  And you'll get a bonus entry for sharing this post (via your blog, Facebook or Twitter).  Just let me know you've done that!

The other exciting news?  This giveaway is the start of my 3-YEAR BLOGIVERSARY CELEBRATION!  Three years ago on the 19th of November, I started sewing and tracking my progress through this blog.  To celebrate, I've got a couple of weeks of exciting posts planned including my biggest sewing news to date, new outfits, reflection posts and more giveaways.....  YAY! Super excited to share this milestone with all of you!

S is for Shirtwaister

A shirtwaister is a dress with a tailored bodice that resembles a shirt.  This style has been popular throughout the decades.  I find it to be a very flattering style, don't you?

Here's a few photos of shirtwaisters throughout the decades with links on where to find these patterns.

1930s:

1. Simplicity 2206 available at Nostalgia Vintage 2 Etsy shop; 2. Simplicity 1736 available at Rainbow Valley Vintage Etsy shop; 3. Simplicity 3103 available at Cottage Lane Treasures's Etsy shop; 4. DuBarry 2183B available at DaisyEpochVintage's Etsy shop

1940s

1. McCall 4562 available at Opal Owl Vintage Etsy Shop; 2. Simplicity 2901 available at Old Fashioned Notions Etsy shop; 3. Simplicity 2398 available at Aunt Nonnies Nest Etsy shop; 4. Advance 2665 from Miss Betty's Attic Etsy shop.

1950s

1.Advance 9771 available at the Dancing Bumblebee Cottage Etsy shop; 2.Simplicity 1427 available at the Atomic Regeneration Etsy shop; 3. Simplicity 4731 available at Dizzy Dame Dresses Etsy shop; 4. Butterick 5841 available at Raiment Revival's Etsy shop.

1960s

1. Butterick 2458 available at Sydcam123's Etsy shop; 2. Butterick 1960s pattern available at Lam4UK's Etsy shop;

3. Simplicity 5800 available at Farmhouse Garden's Etsy shop; 4. Simplicity 5445 available at Grandma's Cedar Chest Etsy shop; 

Me-Made Shirtwaister
I've only made one shirtwaister (so far) but I wear it all the time!  I definitely have more shirtwaisters planned in my sewing queue as it's such an easy and flattering style to wear.  I particularly like making 50s shirtwaisters from novelty fabrics!

My 'Midcentury Madness' shirtwaister made from Style Print 1283

Sunni who blogs over at A Fashionable Stitch recently hosted a Shirtdress sewalong.  While she used a modern pattern, a lot of the techniques she covered would be helpful for sewing up a vintage shirtwaister.

Have you made any shirtwaisters?  Do you have any currently in your sewing queue?

Traveling Jeans

What a whirlwind few weeks! I feel incredibly lucky as I've managed to combine traveling for work with a few short holidays and visiting family in the Pacific Northwest.

I wanted to share a few of my favourite photos snapped along the way and my new wardrobe staple: Freddies of Pinewood Classic 1950s jeans.  I never wear jeans but knew that I needed something a bit more casual than my normal wardrobe staples for the trip. These jeans are fantastic! They are high-waisted with one side button and a hidden zipper in the side pocket.  Plus, they go great with me-made 40's blouses.  I can't believe how much I've worn them on this trip.

So here are my favourite photos from my recent travels.  I only wish I was able to meet-up with my sewing buddies along the way but I know I'll be back in the not so distant future so let me know if you live in any of these locales!

Chicago, IL:
First up was Chicago.  Our hosts showed me and my colleagues around Millennium Park and we even got to go on a boat.  We were blessed with absolutely beautiful weather.  It was amazing!

"The Bean" in Millennium Park, Chicago

My image reflected in "the Bean"

Happy Feet in Chicago

Big Sur, CA

Next stop was California for a conference in San Francisco.  I am bummed I didn't get to meet up with any sewing buddies in CA but know I will probably be back there again before too long!  One thing my colleagues and I did do was take a short break before the conference to explore the Big Sur area. Absolutely stunning!

Point Lobos State Natural Reserve

The plants and wildlife in the State Reserve were beautiful.

I literally wore these jeans everyday!  Here they are in the Point Lobos State Natural Reserve :)

Happy Feet Part 2: Garrapata State Park

Red Rock Canyon, NV:

This last weekend, my sister and I went to Las Vegas for a quick trip and spent some time in Red Rock Canyon!  Loved it!

Freddies of Pinewood jeans and my me-made Du Barry 1940s blouse

It's been really nice to spend some time outdoors in beautiful locations and to have a bit of time off to spend with my family.  I usually don't like flying at this time of the year but so far, I've managed to stay ahead of the extreme weather (knock on wood)!

What about you? Any big travel plans for the holidays?

R is for Ruffles

I so wish I could roll my r's to say the word rrrrrrruffles.  A feature on ruffles was hands down my choice for the letter 'R'.  I love ruffles and I love how they have evolved throughout fashion history from their glamorous use in the 1930s, to their bohemian turned girl-next-door look of the 40s to the domestic goddess look of the 50s.  Ruffles as a garment feature can be both classy and playful.  In my own style preference which is probably closest to a 1940s 'femininely tailored' look, I love pairing ruffled blouses or collar ruffles with tweed and other woolen suiting fabrics.

Here's some images (via Vintage Pattern Wiki and Etsy.com) showing the use of ruffles throughout the decades in sewing patterns:

1930s

1940s

1950s

My Me-Made Creations with Ruffles:

Photos 1 & 2: 1941 McCall Apron, Photo 3: Deco the Halls 1933 Tunic and Photo 4: 1944 Simplicity ruffled dickey

What about you? Do you like wearing ruffles?  Sewing ruffles?

Q is for Quilting

Or more specifically, a type of quilting I am absolutely in love with....Trapunto Quilting.  Trapunto is the Italian word for 'to embroider' and is a type of quilting that creates a raised pattern in material through a method of padding and stitching.  It is seen quite a lot in 1930s and 1940s fashion.

Here is a page from my 1935 Needlewoman magazine showing the latest fashion houses' Trapunto designs:

Here's a great Trapunto design on a 1940s dress from Etsy:

Two great links for Trapunto quilting includes this great tutorial and video link from the QuiltsALott blog and this link to a great pinterest board on Trapunto designs.

Don't you just love it?  I definitely want to try my hand at Trapunto quilting and have the perfect pattern in McCall 840 from 1941:

I've had this pattern in my collection for some time, I just love the design (looks almost Scottish or Celtic).  When I found the pattern again for a steal in my size, I bought it again so that I could give one away for someone else to try their hand at a vintage Trapunto pattern!  I'm hosting the giveaway for McCall 840 in size 14 (or Bust 32) over at my Facebook page (there's a link to my Facebook page in my right sidebar) where it's easier to keep track of entries and notify the winner.  Hop on over and enter to win!  I'll ship anywhere.  It will be fun to have a sewing buddy who's making this at the same time as me :)

Have you ever tried Trapunto?  What do you think?