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Creative Upcycling Competition

Have I ever told you I’m a last minute person? Today is the closing date for an upcycling competition being held by Korbond, with a prize of a sewing machine its got to be worth an entry!

This week I read a great article “It can take an incredible 2700 liters of water to produce the cotton for just one single t-shirt. With only one percent of the world’s water supplies being clean and accessible, this is highly significant. Cotton farming also takes up agricultural land that could be used to produce food for local communities and it uses an extremely high number of chemicals during production.” (1millionwomen) Any competition which encourages extending the life of clothes needs to be supported.

The competition is to upcycle two garments into one. I new straight away that I wished to experiment with an old patchwork liberty waistcoat I made for a school project (25+ years ago) with sashiko inspired stitching.

A plan formed to create a skirt from a pair of cotton trousers, to be embellished with sashiko stitching and pieces of the liberty waistcoat.

Yesterday I finally spotted a pair of suitable trousers in a charity shop – today I spent stitching whilst listening to the radio, bliss.

Firstly I made the skirt (if you would like to know more about how to do that check out this tutorial).

Then the fun bit, I played with pieces of liberty fabric patchwork.

Lastly I hemmed the skirt – initially the plan was to turn under the hem ad hold with bondaweb. However this didn’t pan out so instead I used bias binding.

The project took the morning, what a lovely morning.

Plus I was treated to a great radio program “Tunes from the Trash” all about trash turned into musical instruments in Paraguayan. A program after my heart:)

Shortlisted garments will be shown at the Sewing for Pleasure event at NEC on the 19-21st March, with the winner chosen by the public. I expect there to be some high caliber entries, I look forward to seeing the upcycled garments.

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Jill

Tuesday 31st of January 2017

What a great skirt Vicky! Sounds like you had a lovely day making it too!! Good luck in the competition.

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