Each item I sell is either handmade by me (Hannah) using carefully sourced pre-owned materials, or second hand and repaired. This means you don’t have to worry about your purchase contributing to the worker exploitation, animal cruelty and environmental damage sadly caused by the mainstream fashion industry.

Ethically stitched is committed to being as eco-friendly as possible. I reuse, repair and upcycle because these don’t need any chemicals and are generally better for the environment than conventional recycling (which involves materials being broken down and reprocessed). I also offer an upcycling service so that you can send in damaged and unwanted textile items that could otherwise end up in landfill.

Each handmade bag or accessory is carefully crafted from my home in Ayrshire, using sewing patterns I have designed myself. Using only pre-owned and upcycled materials means that each handmade item is unique and has its own story to tell. Handcrafting each item individually also virtually eliminates the problem of overproduction, as I never have too many of anything.

An environmentally-friendly lifestyle should be accessible to everyone, so I do my best to make sure that Ethically Stitched bags are as affordable as handmade bags can possibly be. This is achieved by using pre-owned materials and by cutting out the middleman and selling directly to you.

For each handmade item, careful thought is given to how to keep waste to an absolute minimum. Often, this means working with rectangular pieces, since these can be cut in a way that makes the best use of the fabric. Where possible, fabric offcuts are used to make small accessories such as scrunchies and bag charms. Loose ends of thread from machine stitching are set aside to be used for hand stitching.