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Students sharpen sewing skills to reduce waste

BBC/Naj Modak Two members of the Tadcrafters are sat at a table with two students, teaching them sewing skills. Sewing equipment including thread and pairs of scissors is spread across the table.BBC/Naj Modak
The Tadcrafters group shared their sewing skills with students to promote sustainability

Sewing experts have shared their skills with students to teach them how to make their own repairs, to reduce waste and promote sustainability.

The Tadcrafters held their first Repair Fair at York St John University, helping students patch up their clothes and bags.

The event was staged by the university’s Living Lab network, based in the Institute for Social Justice, which seeks to make "real changes on campus, from reducing waste to tackling food poverty".

Forensic psychology student Bailee Wray said: “It’s always nice to be able to repair your own clothes instead of throwing them away.”

BBC/Naj Modak Student Bailee Wray holds up a piece of cloth with buttons sewn onto it, while Tadcrafters founder Su Morgan looks on.BBC/Naj Modak
Student Bailee Wray said she wanted to repair her own clothes instead of throwing them away

The second-year student, who said she tried to buy from charity shops where possible, practised her skills by making a needle case.

She said: “I recently bought a sewing machine and I’m planning on putting pockets on this coat that I’m wearing.”

The university said more than 100 students attended the event, with 30 sewing kits handed out and more than 40 items repaired.

Abigail Attridge, who was honing her embroidery skills, said: "If one of your buttons falls off it’s really good to be able to know how to sew it back on."

She said needlework was "fun even if you don’t know how to do it very well".

BBC/Naj Modak Student Abigail Attridge shows off her sewing skills, holding a piece of blue material with buttons arranged in flower patterns.BBC/Naj Modak
Student Abigail Attridge has learned how to embroider

The Tadcrafters - hailing from nearby Tadcaster - were formed in the wake of floods that devastated the town at Christmas in 2015.

Volunteers sought to "cheer the place up" by creating hundreds of metres of bunting to decorate the town in time for the Tour de Yorkshire cycle race the following April.

They have sought to share their skills with the wider community since.

'Vital life skills'

Tadcrafters founder Su Morgan said: “I think there’s a conception that it’s just little old ladies that do sewing and knitting and that’s really wrong.

"These are vital life skills that everybody should have and unfortunately we’re in a society where we just go and buy things new and we don’t mend things and we don’t make things any more and these skills are being lost.”

She added: “In the current climate where we’ve got people who are experiencing poverty and we’ve got lots and lots of issues of sustainability, we shouldn’t be wasting our textiles, our clothes.

"We should be mending them, reusing them and not buying quite so much.”

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