Sujit Gulve, Lecturer, MGM IFD
Fabric pieces which are left after a pattern cut from any fabric, are called as rags, left over, swatches or scraps. Many people who run house hold boutiques must be familiar to this kind of words. Almost every day tons of rag is produced by garment houses. Be they are small scale or industry level, the amount of left over fabric or swatches varies by the amount of production they do. So, the question arises, what they do with the rags produced? Few of them dump the left over into dustbins. Even this left over is sold by the rate of per kilo. Some people use this as firewood for cooking. So, it seems that this left over is just a useless thing or garbage for some people and nothing more than that.
But you guys will be surprised to know that there are some people, or I will say some artists or craftsmen who are using this leftover to make very attractive and creative things out of it. As they say, “one man’s garbage is one man’s treasure”. I met some people who are making awesome artifacts out of this garbage. Some ladies who have started their small business. They use small pieces of fabric, attach them to each other and then make long patches out of it. Which then by joining to each other transformed into beautiful bed covers and carpets. Isn’t this cool? I know one lady, who runs a household boutique. What she does is , she collect all the pieces , sort them, picks all medium size pieces and sets apart all tiny pieces. The tiny pieces are used as stuffing material. The medium size clothes are then converted into pillow bags. Some medium size colorful pieces are used to make pillow covers. All the pillow covers are adorn with applique work, simple embroidery and frills made out of rags. She makes another products too like wall hangings, door mats, mittens, and aprons.
Not only her but there are few more artists who convert all those useless small pieces into fashion accessories too. Yes fashion accessories! So exciting right! One of my friends and her mother have set a small business on the basis of usage of textile waste. Actually, “best out of waste” is their business motto. And here is a list of the huge variety of products they make. They make earrings, bangles, clutches, handbags, applique work jackets, bows, pouches, bag covers, sari covers, blouse covers, small envelops, heir pins, keychain, flowers and other things which are used for embellishment. They do all these very creatively. Each piece is different and has a special artistic touch. And they are providing a job to 5 more ladies who are now capable to look after to their families with the money they make by making and selling these artifacts.
This kind of people are the transformer in real manner. I truly appreciate their work and I am happy to connect with them. Whenever I found this kind of stalls in any exhibition I buy something to just show my appreciation towards their artwork. Here I request to you all that next time if you visit any exhibition and you meet any person selling this kind of things, buy something from them. It will encourage them to produce more and more creative things. Coz sometimes, “encouragement holds more worth than money”.