Sewing

I am a Project Glow Wear Finalist!

Sorry for being so absent this year.  Work has been busier, kids are getting busier, in turn making me busier lol.  I’ve also had my fair share of anxiety and illness this year.  I’m ready for some stress free, happy times!

I have kept up my sewing at home although not as much as I want to.  I get really tired very easily and end up succumbing to the couch all too often.

Back in May I registered for the Wellington Regional Council – Project Glow Wear competition.  The brief was to design a garment or accessory that could be worn by a pedestrian or cyclist with reflective “glowing” capabilities.  To help people be seen by vehicles in the dark.  They also sent me some reflective fabric to get started.

I spent a lot of time pondering over what to design, I came up with a few I really wanted to make and started making patterns.  I then had to organise a Quiz Night fundraiser for my son’s school (which turned out to be an amazing night!), but it took up all my free time.  Definitely worth it as we raised over $2000 for our little country school.  So my construction for the Project was put on hold.  After the Quiz Night I was left with a week and a half to sew up my designs!   I was allowed to enter four garments but unfortunately I only had the time to construct two.

 

Working sewing mess - reflective fabric - stitchremedy.com

 

Even my sewing mess looked pretty interesting and cool when photographed with a flash 🙂

 

I made a men’s denim bomber style jacket with denim cuffs over the ribbing ones. Pockets on the outside.  Reflective horizontal stripes on the body panels and down the arms.  Reflective piping around the cuffs and between the body and lower ribbing.  I also constructed a clear plastic pocket on the chest, only accessible via a zip in the lining.  The purpose of this pocket is to put the torch function on a cell phone, place in the safe pocket and you have a hands free light to light up your path.  You heard it here first!!  I can just see big clothing companies stealing my idea lol.  It’d be awesome to see in production, unfortunately I couldn’t enter the commercial viability category as I couldn’t accept the prize.  Although I’d love to spend 8 weeks as an intern in a clothing manufacturing company, I can’t take the time away in a different town.

I also made a ladies dress, really with the runway in mind rather than practicality lol.  I stitch together stripes of a light almost floaty, metallic silver fabric and the reflective fabric.  I then pieced these into a half bodice.  The other half is a stretch knit type singlet.  Over the top of the singlet side there is a blousoned bodice with a sleeve.  The skirt is faux wrap with reflective piped edge pockets (must have pockets!) and there is elastic on one side at the waist.  Mainly to help with fitting as it’ll fit nicely on a couple different sized models and I had no model measurements to work from.

 

blurry pics of my garments - reflective wear - stitchremedy.com

 

Sorry for the blur – I didn’t get enough time to take good photos of them before the post deadline.  I was still sewing the night before!  I’m hoping to see good pics after the runway shows 🙂

 

One or both of my pieces are in the top ten of their category!  I don’t know which yet, I will hopefully know soon, if not then I am hoping to attend the runway show in Auckland later this month.

 

I will keep you posted!  and start keeping this blog updated as well!  Wish me luck!