Digital Commons Network^™

Sustainability In Fashion, Emily Steiner

Senior Honors Projects

In a world where fashion is constantly changing, clothing constantly being produced, how do we help make the fashion industry a sustainable one? Through my research and multiple classes at the University of Rhode Island on sustainability in the fashion industry, I learned we do have the power to make a change. The fashion industry is one of the leading causes of pollution, so it must be able to have a big reverse impact if efforts are made to reduce this pollution. My project focuses on the dyeing process of fabrics. Many dyes contain harsh chemicals that pollute our oceans …

Sewing And Dressmaking In Martha Mcmillan's Day (1891), Elizabeth G. Allen

Martha McMillan Research Papers

This paper describes the process of sewing and dressmaking in America from the mid 1800s to the early 1900s and provides historical context for Martha McMillan's discussion of sewing and dressmaking in her 1891 journal.

Review: Prairie Lotus, Rachel Schwedt, Janice A. Delong

Ages 10-12

No abstract provided.

Investigations In Wearable, Fiber, And Mixed Media Works Of Art, Mercedes Geiger

Summer Scholarship, Creative Arts and Research Projects (SCARP)

This project focuses on learning and improving sewing skills, working with different materials, and time management skills. Each piece relates to the artist in some way shape or form and explores bringing abstract concepts into the physical world.

I Poked You Where We Were Connected, Sophia Ruppert

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

Life leaves behind physical and mental residue. Some of these remnants are precious while others are tragic. Regardless of its origin, this residue can be made beautiful. Remnants of the objects that surround us chronicle our history as complex individuals. My sculptures investigate my own physical and mental residue to dissect and examine my personal history.
I unravel experiences that are residually prominent in my memories. Of particular importance are events and objects that have shaped my perception of self.
stories told by my grandmothers
a dysfunctional family dynamic
objects that provide visual touchstones to my childhood
These fragments are …

Wilgus, Donald Knight (Fa 1203), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1203. Student folk studies projects collected by Professor Donald Knight “D. K.” Wilgus while teaching folk studies classes at Western Kentucky University. Most of the items collected are from south central Kentucky, but also includes items from Indiana, Ohio and Tennessee.

Heritage, Tradition, And Craft In Quiltmaking (Fa 1131), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1131. Collection contains Interviews, photographs, and informant data sheets relating to Sandy Staebell's project with quiltmakers in Allen County and Monroe County, Kentucky and Macon County, Tennessee for the 2017-2018 Osby Lee Hire and Lillian K. Garrison Hire Memorial Lecture Series.

Ohio River Survey (Fa 656), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 656. Kentucky Folklife Program project titled: “Ohio River Survey,” which includes interviews, tape logs, photographs and other documentation of folklife along the Ohio River in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky. Interviews may include a description of belief, traditional occupation, practice, craft, or tool, informant’s name, age, birth date, and address.

Powell, Steve (Fa 1195), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1195. Student paper titled “Quilting for Frugality” in which Steve Powell interviews close family members and friends about their experiences with quilt making. Powell offers a brief biographical background on each informant along with individual motivations and inspirations for crafting quilts. The paper includes color photographs of various types of quilting patterns and one sample of a quilting square.

Warren, Kaye (Fa 1150), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1150. Student folk studies project titled “From Slavery to Freedom for the Negro Race in Logan County [Kentucky]” which includes survey sheets with a brief description of African American life in Logan County, Kentucky. Sheets may include interviews, written records, photographs, informant’s name, age, and address.

Constructing Identity Through The Lens Of Fashion: An Honors Thesis, Cara P. Doiron

Honors College

Fashion is an artistic decision that every person makes every day. Even those who say they don’t care about clothing are still portraying something about themselves to the outside world with the stylistic choices they make. This creative Honors Thesis explores the impact of fashion on self-representation, accomplished through the design and construction of a capsule wardrobe line of clothing. Due to the project’s personal and introspective nature, the intended wearer is the artist, and therefore the pieces are specifically tailored to her, rather than the straight sized garments that are typically produced in the fashion industry. This line consists …

Garment Workers In Kentucky Oral History Project (Fa 865), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project FA 865. Interviews conducted by Lisa Karen Miller containing details about the lives of garment workers in Kentucky and Tennessee. Some of the topics included were technological changes, job layoffs, and labor unions.

Owens, Nellie, 1912-2007 (Sc 3051), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and full text scan (click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 3051. W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration) sewing notebook of Nellie Owens, Louisville, Kentucky, containing fabric swatches and sewing samples.

Edmunds And Willis Family Papers (Mss 549), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 549. Almost exclusively correspondence of the Edmunds and Willis families of Barren County, Kentucky. The Willis family correspondence (the bulk of the collection) is almost exclusively amongst females, so housekeeping, sewing, fashion, family matters are discussed frequently. Frank Willis, the family patriarch, does discuss farming with his daughters. Many of the letters are addressed to his wife, Laura (Edmunds) Willis, and a majority of those are from her daughters.

Aram Han-Sifuentes Interview, Yanessa Rodriguez

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio:
Aram Han Sifuentes learned how to sew when she was 6 years old from her seamstress mother. Han Sifuentes was born in Seoul, South Korea and immigrated to Modesto, California as a child. She mines from her family’s immigration experience to address issues of labor and explores identity as a first generation immigrant.

Han Sifuentes’s work has been shown in national and international exhibitions. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Chung Young Yang Embroidery Museum in Seoul, South Korea; Wing Luke Museum of Asian Pacific American Experience in Seattle, WA; Center for Craft, Creativity and …

A Language In Becoming, Camille C. Hawbaker

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

Words as I have known them are evolving concepts in the landscape of human language, where the meanings of words are interwoven with layers of history and culture. The boundaries of language are defined by words, and around the edges are instinctive sounds that precede and exceed meaning. These sounds are an interrupting force that unsettles the linguistic structure. We often use them for expression in the form of sobs, grunts, moans, murmurs, chants, obscenities and exclamations. They appear in times of spontaneous emotion that words cannot convey. They can also be used purposely, poetically, “…to shatter [one’s] judging consciousness …

Lanier Collection (Mss 488), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and full text of post-World War II pen pal letters and selected images from ciphering book of Collins Lanier from Manuscripts Collection 488. Collection consists chiefly of letters written to Deanna June (Linville) Lanier by friends and her family, particularly her mother Lena (Harris) Linville. Includes some interesting pen pal letters with a German child, 1948 to 1950. Includes genealogical material about the Lanier and Linville families. Also includes early Warren County, Kentucky material from brothers, Byrd Lanier and Collins Lanier, including a little correspondence, bills and notes, receipts, and property records.

Lawrence, Ruth, 1892-1969 (Mss 476), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 476. Letters, written mostly to Ruth Lawrence in North Carolina and Louisville, Kentucky, genealogical notes, and Ruth’s domestic science notebook. Many of the letters are from or concern her relatives in the Goodnight, Moulder and Lawrence families of Kentucky, Texas and Tennessee.

Atlantic Threads: Singer In Spain And Mexico, 1860-1940, Paula A. De La Cruz-Fernández

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the role of Singer in the modernization of sewing practices in Spain and Mexico from 1860 to 1940. Singer marketing was founded on gendered views of women’s work and gendered perceptions of the home. These connected with sewing practices in Spain and Mexico, where home sewing remained economically and culturally important throughout the 1940s. "Atlantic Threads" is the first study of the US-owned multinational in the Hispanic World. I demonstrate that sewing practices, and especially practices related to home sewing that have been considered part of the private sphere and therefore not an important historical matter, contributed …

Faytullayeva, Shamira A. (Fa 584), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding Aid only for Folklife Archives Project 584. Illustrated paper by Shamira A. Faytullayeva titled “A Great Tailor in My Family.” This illustrated project describes the economic benefits of the tailoring skills of a Russian emigrant, Samisiya Faytullayeva. Samisiya’s mother taught her to sew when she was a child, and the skill has provided an income for her family in the years since her husband’s death and their subsequent immigration to the United States. This project was submitted for the 2011 Folklife Archives Award competition at Western Kentucky University.

Sewing Technique: Box Pleat, Sandra Bradshaw

All Current Publications

Box Pleat is used to provide a decorative finish and add fullness to a garment. This pleat has two identical folds that meet together and is stitched to ensure it is secure and placed evenly.

Sewing Technique: Lapped Zipper, Jen Giddens, Sarah Geer, Lindsey Shirley, Chanae Weller

All Current Publications

This is a how-to publication on the techniques used to install lapped zippers.

Sewing Technique: Straight Ruffle, Jen Giddens, Sarah Geer, Lindsey Shirley, Chanae Weller

All Current Publications

This is a how-to publication on creating straight ruffles.

Sewing Technique: Circular Ruffle, Jen Giddens, Lindsey Shirley, Chanae Weller, Sarah Geer

All Current Publications

This is a how-to publication on creating circular ruffles.

Sewing Technique: Hand-Worked Keyhole Buttonhole, Jen Giddens, Sarah Geer, Lindsey Shirley, Chanae Weller

All Current Publications

This is a how-to publication providing information on how to make hand-worked keyhole buttonholes.

Sewing Technique: Centered Zipper, Sarah Geer, Jen Giddens, Chanae Weller, Lindsey Shirley

All Current Publications

This is a how-to publication on the techniques used to install centered zippers.

Sewing Technique: Flat-Felled Seam, Jen Giddens, Sarah Geer, Lindsey Shirley, Chanae Weller

All Current Publications

This is a how-to publication providing information on how to sew a flat-felled seam.

Sewing Glossary, Sarah Geer, Lindsey Shirley

All Current Publications

This publication includes a glossary of terms used in sewing.

Sewing Skills Quiet Book, Debra Proctor, Susan Haws

All Current Publications

This is a how-to guide for completing a quiet book sewing project.

Charity Pillowcases, Debra Proctor, Susan Haws

All Current Publications

This is a how-to guide for completing a charity pillowcase sewing project.