Research
For our project we had to visit an art gallery or an ecological clothing shop. We decided to visit Ramsjburg, a second-hand shop in Middelburg. We interviewed an employee there, he told us about the main goal of the shop and why they decided to start a thrift-shop in the first place.
Their goals are to help people in Africa with money to start a better life like we have in the Netherlands. They send the money they earned net to African countries, for example the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Republic of Ecuador. They do this because they think everyone deserves a good life, everyone should be equal. Ramsjburg was created 10 years ago, they receive their products from people who don't want it anymore. The employees separate these products in two groups, one group are things they can sell and the other are products they can't sell anymore. They give these products to another second-hand shop who makes things out of these products, so nothing is wasted! Ramsjburg has different locations throughout our province, all with the same goal ; to earn as much money for people to send to Africa. The shop sells all products for a relatively low price, they do this because first of all, people don’t feel like paying much for products that are already used, but also to help people who have a less budget to spend. For example, they have all kinds of cheap clothing they can buy for a small price. We also asked the employee if he had any ideas for our own product. He said it would be a good idea to make a clothing piece, since they had a lot of clothing in the shop. He also gave us some nice tips since he also creates clothing. He told us to use all the material of the dress, so don't throw away anything. |
Process of our own product
While we were at the second-hand shop Ramsjburg, we saw a nice dress and some jewelry, we decided to use those things to make our own product.
We decided to make a shirt, scrunchie and mask out of the dress and make earrings and a necklace out of an old necklace. Lotte and Kirsten made the shirt, scrunchie and mask. They started by making a sketch, after that they grabbed their supplies and started! First they cut the dress in half, they used the upper half to make a shirt. Lotte sewed a hem to the underside so that it wouldn't fray. To finish the shirt , she made it a little tighter so that it would fit Kirsten better. Kirsten made the scrunchie: she cut a piece of 9-45cm and sewed it into a tube inside-out. Then she turned it around so that the good side was on the outside. She put a safety pin on a piece of elastic, pulled it through the tube of fabric and sewed the two ends together of both the elastic and the fabric. There was still a fair amount of fabric left, so we decided to make a mask as well. We searched for a pattern online, traced it, cut it and sewed it together. The last step was to sew two pieces of elastic to the end of the mask and then we were done with the outfit. Caitlynn and Isolde made the jewelry, they made earrings, a necklace and a ring. They took some of the flowers of the necklace and made it a bit shorter. They also used an old ring, and put a flower of the necklace on top of the ring. We still had quite a few flowers left of the necklaces, so we decided to also make a pair of earrings. |
Final product
We also had to make a platform for our product, so we made an Instagram account; @ecologicalcreativity_2020 , we think that social media is a very good platform to show your product since a lot of young people are on Instagram.
video conference
On the 10th of December we had a video conference with the students in India. We talked about our projects and asked each other questions. Before the video call we divided what everyone was gonna say and what questions we were going to ask. They also asked us questions which we answered. Everything went quite okay. The only thing that was a bit off was the wifi, and due to that we could not really understand each other sometimes. But we were still able to answer all the questions and they answered all of ours so that went well.
The questions we asked were:
These were the answers we got from them:
They are making masks because of corona and they are using old clothing to make masks. They also want to make a laptop and/or phone standard. This is a solution they thought of due to the pandemic. They are all sitting at home behind their devices and they then thought of a standard. They are also makenig bags out of cardboard and newspapers. They gathered their materials for this part with things they own and old materials that they would throw away if they didn’t have this project.
The questions we asked were:
- What are you producing or what are you planning to produce?
- Where are you getting your materials from?
These were the answers we got from them:
They are making masks because of corona and they are using old clothing to make masks. They also want to make a laptop and/or phone standard. This is a solution they thought of due to the pandemic. They are all sitting at home behind their devices and they then thought of a standard. They are also makenig bags out of cardboard and newspapers. They gathered their materials for this part with things they own and old materials that they would throw away if they didn’t have this project.
Comparison
We compared our research and product with students from India on their website. They decided to do a detailed study on a company called Doodlage, an ecological clothing company. For the final product they made a mug rug made out of old pieces of cloth. We ourselves decided to visit Ramjsburg, a second-hand clothing shop. For the final product we made jewelry, a shirt with matching scrunchie and a mask. We made these things out of old clothing, just like the students in India.
Conclusion and reflection
Isolde
What I think went well in our project was our teamwork. We talked about everything very good and discussed all of the projects we had to do very well. We divided the task okay, although the dividing could be a bit better. We can get along very well with each other which is good for teamwork and communication. We found a good balance between having fun and being serious. We reused as many products as we could. In my opinion the end products turned out great and amazing! I love how we could make second-hand clothing and jewellery into such cool and new clothing. I think our sketch could have been a bit better. I think you learn a lot of doing stuff you like, we learned new skills and how to work together while making stuff. I was a bit disappointed in how much contact we had with the groups in India. We only talked to them once and we did not have any other contact. We also did not have a groupchat with them, like the other class had. But I really enjoyed doing this project, because I think the concept of reusing clothing is really interesting and good, and I hope that in the future more and more people will make their own clothes and reuse clothes. Overall I really liked this project and it was really fun and interesting! I definitely learned a lot from this project.
Lotte
I think that everything we did went pretty well. The first thing we did was divide the tasks, and we were quick to come up with a plan for the outfit. The communication and the teamwork were particularly good in our group. The sketch could have been made with a bit more precision, but for the rest it all went well. We had a lot of fun together with creating the outfit and posting on the Instagram account of ecological creativity. We learnt a lot by doing stuff with our hands like the making of the clothing and the jewellery, and it was nice to get feedback right away from my friends about how I could do some things better or faster. I think we could have maybe taken some more time to create the outfit, and it also would have been nice if we had gotten the phone numbers of our Indian counterparts so we could communicate, but next to that everything went pretty well. Almost all the material we used to create our project was second-hand and it was amazing to see how much you could do with it. I definitely would like to do something like this again.
Caitlynn
I think almost everything went quite well. We divided the tasks quite fast. We had very much fun. I think that the communication was very good. Our teamwork was very good. We communicated a lot. We as girls have the same mindset as each other. We were fast with ideas of what to create and what to do. Learning by doing is very effective. It provides someone to get instant feedback so you can do it better right away. You can change a lot when you get feedback right away. With this project I have learned a lot. I learned to be open to people and meet new people. I have gained knowledge of making products with recycled products. I think some things could we have done better. I think we should have posted more on our instagram page. We could also make the website nicer. Just that it is inspirational to look at. The communication with India wasn’t good. We haven’t got any of their phone numbers so we couldn’t communicate. The blueprint could also have been better. It was just a simple sketch and we could have made it more interesting. But after all everything went well and I think we did a good job!
Kirsten
I think that the project went very well. We can get along very good, so working together wasn’t a problem at all. We divided the tasks very fast and everyone was happy with what they had to do. We had a lot of fun while making the final product and doing research. I think that I learned some things by doing this project. I learned some nice things about Ramjsburg and how to create your own ecological outfit. It was nice to work together with girls who like the same things as you do and who are very determined to produce a good product. The communication with India could have gone better, we only had one opportunity to chat via a video conference. So i think that it would have been better if we had their phone numbers or if we would have had another conference. Almost everything we used for the final product was second-hand, so I think that we did a great job on producing an ecological product. The only thing that could have been made better, was the blueprint. I think that it could have been made more attractive and less simple.But apart from that I’m satisfied with everything we have done. I would definitely like to do something like this again.
What I think went well in our project was our teamwork. We talked about everything very good and discussed all of the projects we had to do very well. We divided the task okay, although the dividing could be a bit better. We can get along very well with each other which is good for teamwork and communication. We found a good balance between having fun and being serious. We reused as many products as we could. In my opinion the end products turned out great and amazing! I love how we could make second-hand clothing and jewellery into such cool and new clothing. I think our sketch could have been a bit better. I think you learn a lot of doing stuff you like, we learned new skills and how to work together while making stuff. I was a bit disappointed in how much contact we had with the groups in India. We only talked to them once and we did not have any other contact. We also did not have a groupchat with them, like the other class had. But I really enjoyed doing this project, because I think the concept of reusing clothing is really interesting and good, and I hope that in the future more and more people will make their own clothes and reuse clothes. Overall I really liked this project and it was really fun and interesting! I definitely learned a lot from this project.
Lotte
I think that everything we did went pretty well. The first thing we did was divide the tasks, and we were quick to come up with a plan for the outfit. The communication and the teamwork were particularly good in our group. The sketch could have been made with a bit more precision, but for the rest it all went well. We had a lot of fun together with creating the outfit and posting on the Instagram account of ecological creativity. We learnt a lot by doing stuff with our hands like the making of the clothing and the jewellery, and it was nice to get feedback right away from my friends about how I could do some things better or faster. I think we could have maybe taken some more time to create the outfit, and it also would have been nice if we had gotten the phone numbers of our Indian counterparts so we could communicate, but next to that everything went pretty well. Almost all the material we used to create our project was second-hand and it was amazing to see how much you could do with it. I definitely would like to do something like this again.
Caitlynn
I think almost everything went quite well. We divided the tasks quite fast. We had very much fun. I think that the communication was very good. Our teamwork was very good. We communicated a lot. We as girls have the same mindset as each other. We were fast with ideas of what to create and what to do. Learning by doing is very effective. It provides someone to get instant feedback so you can do it better right away. You can change a lot when you get feedback right away. With this project I have learned a lot. I learned to be open to people and meet new people. I have gained knowledge of making products with recycled products. I think some things could we have done better. I think we should have posted more on our instagram page. We could also make the website nicer. Just that it is inspirational to look at. The communication with India wasn’t good. We haven’t got any of their phone numbers so we couldn’t communicate. The blueprint could also have been better. It was just a simple sketch and we could have made it more interesting. But after all everything went well and I think we did a good job!
Kirsten
I think that the project went very well. We can get along very good, so working together wasn’t a problem at all. We divided the tasks very fast and everyone was happy with what they had to do. We had a lot of fun while making the final product and doing research. I think that I learned some things by doing this project. I learned some nice things about Ramjsburg and how to create your own ecological outfit. It was nice to work together with girls who like the same things as you do and who are very determined to produce a good product. The communication with India could have gone better, we only had one opportunity to chat via a video conference. So i think that it would have been better if we had their phone numbers or if we would have had another conference. Almost everything we used for the final product was second-hand, so I think that we did a great job on producing an ecological product. The only thing that could have been made better, was the blueprint. I think that it could have been made more attractive and less simple.But apart from that I’m satisfied with everything we have done. I would definitely like to do something like this again.
Down here you can see our self-evaluation