Public88 : Fashion

Sarah Brobst likes to talk and work with her hands, and she keeps them busy. When she is not working with children at Ijams Nature Center in South Knoxville, she is hard at work creating recycled jewelry for her 3-year-old business, Designs by Sarah Brobst.

Now she and her friend Kimberly Womack, a former Ijams employee and fellow recycle artist, have created the Fashion Alchemy Club, and put on a monthly crafting workshop that meets at the Pilot Light bar in the Old City.

The pair are upcyclers, which means they help keep used consumer goods out of the landfills by turning them into new products.

“It is (about making) something new again,” said Brobst. “Why throw it away when you may need to just take it in a little bit or add some embellishments? It doesn’t take a lot … to make something cool and functional again.”

The club, which had its first meeting in May with 10 participants, meets on the first Sunday of every month and costs $10 per meeting. The fee pays for food and restocking the club with used materials such as jackets, old watches, beads, picture frames and hubcaps. While there are enough supplies to go around, participants are encouraged to bring their own supplies to share, said Brobst.

“I just don’t know where else I would get this,” said workshop attendee Kay Meredith, who as been crafting for 40 years. “I think that both Kimberly and Sarah are creative and artistic and … I like the fact it is recycled.”

At the first workshop, funk played on a turntable in the background as Meredith finished sewing a handbag she was making out of a used men’s jacket.

“I liked the fabric. I am going to make some jewelry (after this). I like to make as much as I can while I’m here.”

Brobst and Womack wondered around, stopping to help whenever someone had a question. Womack, who recently went into business making custom handbags, helped out with sewing. There is no set curriculum.

“Kimberly’s is more in-depth because it is sewing,” said Brobst, “where as in jewelry, I’m like, ‘Here is some stuff. We can glue it together. Let’s put a chain on it because it’ll look better.’ “

Both upcyclers have been crafting for years. Brobst started out making jewelry in high school because she wanted to wear a different piece of jewelry every day. To do so, she had to make them, and everyday for a year she had something new around her neck.

Womack, on the other hand, went to Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond where she studied textiles, focusing on weaving.

“I don’t even look at the style of clothing,” she said. “I just look at the label to see what it is made out of. What I learned in college was how to recognize high-quality fabrics.”

For Womack, there is a whole do-it-yourself culture surrounding

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