WAR ON WANT - BENGLADESH

War on Want is asking us to take action. Please sign the petition against major retailers who use these factories.



Take action and demand justice for victims of Bangladesh building collapse
Over 200 people have been killed in the collapse of a building in Bangladesh which housed garment factories making clothes for Primark, Matalan, Mango and other major brands.
Take action now and demand these UK high street brands to take responsibility for this tragedy by paying full compensation to the workers and commit to action to ensure disasters like this become a thing of the past.

Sign the petition to Primark, Matalan and Mango now



A.M. Ahad/AP/Press Association Images

Primark, Matalan and Mango make huge profits off the backs of the workers in factories like these, and now they must take responsibility for their failure to ensure workplace safety and prevent disasters like this. These companies must pay full compensation, including their lost earnings, to the families who have lost relatives and the workers injured in this disaster.
Compensation alone is not enough – these companies must act to ensure that disasters like this never happen again. The Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement is a landmark project, bringing together brands, supplier factories, trade unions and NGOs to end the appallingly unsafe factory conditions and ensure decent working conditions. These brands must sign the agreement and commit to make real changes to ensure the factories that make their clothes are safe, and no workers’ lives are at risk.

Take action now and demand an end to these avoidable tragedies

SELLING THROUGH PAYPAL? BEWARE

If you're selling on-line and your website uses PayPal I have just found out what to do in order to get a refund from them.  In a case against you when you are the innocent party, there are two things you must make sure:

1. Always use a tracker when sending the item to prove you've sent the item. Paypal will ask you for a tracker number. Without it, you won't get considered for a refund even if you are in your right.

2. Make sure if your item was commissioned to be able to prove it by mentioning it on the website where you're selling your item. PayPal always refund commissions.

Further more, never assume that the customer's address shown on PayPal is correct. Always double check if the address exists on Google map or other means, and contact customer to confirm if in doubt.

THE GREAT BRITISH SEWING BEE RETURNS

The Great British Sewing Bee will return for a second longer series, BBC Two has confirmed.

The needlework competition, inspired by The Great British Bake Off and presented by Claudia Winkleman, will return in 2014 for a six-part series.

The first series of The Great British Sewing Bee featured eight competitors, with 81-year-old Ann Rowley crowned the winner in a finale watched by 2.7 million viewers.

Controller of BBC Two Janice Hadlow said: "I'm delighted that BBC Two viewers have taken this series to their hearts. "It has proved that an ill-fitting zip or badly placed dart can make for compelling television in much the same way as a soggy bottom on Great British Bake Off and I can't wait for the next series."
- The Belfast Telegraph.co.uk

Congratulations to Ann, 81. 75 years of sewing it showed! It also demonstrated that you don't have to be young to be cool and interesting (Yoko Ono has just turned 80 on 18th February this year). I can' t wait to see thee second series. I must confess that at each challenge, I couldn't think what I would have done. Anyway, it was truly deserved.

 

LE PRINCE JARDINIER

Le Prince Jardinier is a Toile de Jouy created by Olivier Thévenon. I was commissioned to make four cushions with rosettes by Le Vieux Comptoir, a French store in London.

CRAFTY

Crafty is a new publication about sewing andeverything hand-made. It is sold with free calico on the cover. Pretty expensive at £4.99, I found the items to make quite boring, nothing I hadn't seen before, from tote bags to felt toys.

 

However, I thought the article were pretty interesting, especially about copyrighting your creations and how big companies or other crafters steal ideas from blogs and on-line shops like Etsy and reproduce them without consent. Useful tips as how to protect yourself. In effect make sure you copyright your creations, take pictures of everything and e-mail them to yourself once on-line with a date which will prove who created what when. 

I liked the layout and the paper it was printed on. They have an interesting website to visit. www.craftymag.com

THE GREAT SEWING BEE

I watched The Great British Sewing Bee on BBC2 that I thoroughly enjoyed. The 81 old lady impressed me the most, and the mechanic surprised me too (in the end). Good luck to all of them. What a great idea for a programme.

Actually I created this blog by visiting Tilly's on Blogger (she's not doing that great though). Her blog: www.tillyandthebuttons.com. Read how she got on with the show and the tasks given to her.

Can't wait for the next one. As long as it inspires others to make clothes, even men with piercings and beards, it'll be all worth it. Enough of cheap and nasty clothes, flimsy transparent T-shirts, clothes you wouldn't even wear in bed. Enough of ever shortening fashion cycles, with a 60's revival every season and a 80's nostalgia trip every two. I was leafing though the ASOS magazine, they were even promoting a 90's Grunge look (a checked shirt tied around the waist... yeah) and getting all excited about wait for it ... Kiki Dee's garb in her famous video with Elton John Don't Go Breaking My Heart in the 70's. For those who can't remember this, she was wearing dungarees.

If you are interested in campaigning against sweatshops making throwaway fashion and other (not so cheap) sportswear, click on: www.waronwant.org/campaigns/love-fashion-hate-sweatshops, you can get cards, badges and stickers to promote the cause.

Asian Women Project at Newham College