Happy 20th Birthday Little Hands Design!

‘Little Handers’ and Team LHD at the end of the festival holding the textile community project ‘SDG Square’ Wall Hanging.

We Celebrated our 20th Birthday on the 10th July at London School of Mosaic with a Festival to launch their book ‘Look Good and Feel Good without Harming Our World’ – A Practical Hand Book ‘Sustainability Education through Fashion and Textiles’.

Little Hands Design Festival included an exciting series of talks around topics of fashion and sustainability. Speakers included Steve Lyons from Re-Fashion, Zaquiya Cajee from Swop it Up, Shilpa Bilimoria founder and creative director of House of Bilimoria and Director of London School of Mosaic David Tootill and a presentation on Science and Fashion from Fashion Revolution Kazakhstan, including an interview with Designer of Sneature ‘The Compostable Trainer’ Emilie Burfeind.

Founder and CEO of Little Hands Design, Astrid Jacoby, now Sustainability Coordinator of Haileybury Almaty International School spoke with Michael Jacoby, Senior Academic at Haileybury Almaty about the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals and how to embed them within the curriculum.These talks will be available to watch on Little Hands Design website and youtube channel.

Little Hands Design’s Sustainability Ambassadors had recently organised a community litter pick on the Ludham and Waxham estate. Following on from the litter pick there were workshops on ‘Waste as a Resource’ at the festival, where participants made pencil cases from water bottles, wallets from cartons and decorations from wrappers!

Participants could also take part in guessing how much the ‘Jar of Rubbish’ collected from the litter pick weighed and a survey to help understand consumption habits around single use plastic. Raising awareness of local plastic pollution and how we can see waste as a resource.
Little Hands Design has been working on a community textile project to visulise the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, by making a square for each goal (all from scraps and domestic textile waste) to be made into a wall hanging. Students, clients from the Helen Bamber Foundation and festival participants chose an SDG and made a textile visualisation of their goal of choice. All ages and abilities took part in the workshops demonstrating how accessible sewing is!

Little Hands Design’s Sustainability Ambassadors also organised a mending workshop and a clothes swap at the festival. The Clothes Swap was supported by Swop it Up, an initiative set up by teens for young people. After the success of the festival Little Hands Design is now partnering with Reworked Camden (a sustainable fashion label, that reworks clothes) at Camden’s Buck Street Market- London’s first eco market and Swop it Up to run a clothes swap every Friday throughout the summer.

To launch Little Hands Design book ‘Look Good and Feel Good without harming our World’ students collaborated with See Through Theatre Company to perform ‘The Owl and the Birds’- a story ‘Sustainable Development Goals in Stories’ project, Part 2 of Little Hands Design Book where there is a story for each of the UN’s 17 SDGs, written by story tellers Marion Leeper and Tanya Bett, illustrations by Shilpa Bilimoria. Students made a human sized Owl puppet from fabric scraps and bird puppets to bring the story to life!

Performance of ‘The owl and Birds’ with LIttle Handers and See Through Theatre

The story of the ‘Owl and the Birds’ demonstrates SDG11 Sustainable Cities and Communities, the owl representing those warning of climate change and the birds representing humanity not realising the effects of their actions will not only hurt nature but also themselves. The festival concluded with birthday cake from Mother Canteen and an impromptu fashion show of students wearing items of clothing they had made, many of these items were made whilst attending lessons online, in particular one student came specially from Rochester for the event to meet their teachers in person for the first time after joining the Little Hands Design Community online just over a year ago.

Founder & CEO Astrid Jacoby with Clients from Helen Bamber Foundation

Astrid Jacoby with Director Georgie Rees and Birthday Cake

Little Hands Design’s Festival was a demonstration of how the Sustainable Development Goals can be put into action, in a fun and creative way. They are now making plans to go into schools with their book and workshops to share education in hands-on skills in sustainable fashion and textiles. For more information on how to join the Little Hands Design community and to purchase their book on their website littlehandsdesign.com. Follow Little Hands Design on their social media to find out about latest collaborations, courses and events.

Skirt made through online lessons

Jumper made using industry waste and using a zero waste pattern

Top made from Industry Waste

Top is students own design and made through online lessons

Top is students own design and made through online lessons & earrings made from sweet wrappers