I visited the Cornell sheep farm in Dryden NY on the Shearing School weekend March 2-3. Several local farmers came out to learn techniques about shearing sheep. The class was taught by one of the top shearers in the US, world renown Doug Rathke who obtained training from New Zealand Wool. Surrounding the farm, there…
Author: Helen Trejo
Helen Trejo is a sustainable fashion advocate and co-founder of Fiber Novation Loops LLC, a social enterprise that explores the intersection of fashion, agriculture, and technology to support the long-term sustainability of US fiber farms. Helen received her B.A. in fashion design from UC Davis, and her M.A. and Ph.D in Fiber Science & Apparel Design at Cornell University.
www.helenxtrejo.com
Bridging Branches with Crochet
When I look up, I see branches that fill the sky and see changes in the background of the branches. It is amazing to imagine that everyday we are exposed to these changes. Even as I stand watching the branches, blue sky, and clouds, I see nuanced changes as the wind causes the clouds to…
Plastic bags, bags, bags…
I was happily surprised to learn that I saved 5 cents at Target for using my re-useable bag instead of plastic. I think incentives can help reduce the amount of plastic bags that people use, but it will take some time for people to fully convert to re-useable bags in place of double bags for…
Snow inspires creativity
This is another fashion illustration that represents how I feel in the snow: playful, in anticipation, and feeling like someone should be with me in case I need help getting up after falling. This again ties into “tabula rasa” and seeing the snow as a blank slate for imagination and creativity.Drawing these illustrations has led…
Snow as a “background”
Since this my first Winter in Ithaca and the first time I am seeing snow, I am trying to appreciate as many aspects as I can. I remember two years ago in Davis CA, everyone was super excited because there was a chance of snow in Sacramento and maybe Davis. Everyone’s hopes were down because…
Ithaca’s hilly landscape
Walking in a graveyard can be intimidating, but it can lead to valuable reflections of the past for new insights. I visited a graveyard West of the Cornell campus and most of the tombstones dated back to the 1800s. I began to imagine what it must have been like to live in Ithaca at that…
Winter “tabula rasa”
The glistening white snow in Ithaca inspires me to think of Winter as a season that encourages us to begin our days as “tabula rasa,” as blank slates. Every day we have an opportunity to start over. If we did not like aspects of the day before, we have the chance to make the next…
Aesthetics and Appreciation on Buffalo St.
Another Buffalo St. image on the weekend of the winter storm captivated my attention. An image of a feathery looking plant with patches of white snow. I appreciated this image because the bottom half appears like it is struggling to survive, but the top half with the “feathers” look playful and charming. It seemed like…
Commonality between people and nature
Youth advocate and social entrepreneur Wes Moore visited Cornell to commemorate Martin Luther King. He conveyed how we can contribute to our community by envisioning equality as a person’s potential rather their physical or socio-economic characteristics. This relates to nature because nature also has equal potential; however, anthropocentric ideologies of people’s power over nature have…
Inspired by nature in the town
I was walking down Buffalo St. on Sunday. The snow was melting and it was very wet and slushy outside. I looked up and saw how beautiful the leafless trees looked with the snow propped on top of them. The hues of browns, greens, and grays was really inspirational and led me to create this…
Shared experiences in nature
Comparing the appearances of different places at different times can inspire an awareness of unity and equality. This image reflects sunrise. I was among thousands of people at Obama’s second inaugural address on January 21, 2013 and we all saw the same vision of the sun rising over the capitol at about 7am. It was…
Knitting local!
I created my first hand-knitted seamless sweater as another approach to zero-waste fashion design! I learned how to knit when I was 18 from a book, how to do purl, stockinette, and ribbing stitches while I was at UC Davis, but I only knew how to do simple scarves. I considered myself a beginner knitter…
“Constructed” no waste fashions
Zero-waste is a branch of sustainable fashion that eliminates textile waste from the production stage. The entire length and width of fabrics are used. I created this collection as part of my design honors thesis at the University of California Davis (January-May 2012). I was extremely inspired by the work of Timo Rissanen, Holly McQuillan, Mark…
Local discoveries for sustainable fashion design
In conducting preliminary research for my Masters thesis in Apparel Design, I was excited to find that there are several local fiber farms in Tompkins county. I found farms in Ithaca, Groton, and Prattsburg NY that produce yarns from the soft, fluffy hairs of sheep, goats, and alpaca (ie “exotic” animals). Learning about these local…
HELEN TREJO 