Take my free clothes- please!

After the swap, our intention was to have some material for Works-in-Progress projects (hoops, frames, yarn, t-shirts, sheets, colourful prints) but the bulk of the remaining donations had to find a home (our storage right now is one small, overfull basement) It is hard to get people to take free things! As one of the sorters, I understand from the other side about how much work it can be to deal with the generousity of others- this is why we encourage people to come out and shop at the swap! We have also been lucky, where the donors to the swap really do donate very nice, clean, desirable clothes. 

In the end, we did find a home for all of of these great donations- special thanks to Bag2School for making a pick up on a Saturday for about 12 bags, smaller than the ton+ these swaps have produced in the past. This past week, before the pick up, we reached out to and  donated about 6 big bags of women's clothes to Sistering- NO children clothes right now, but YES to diapers and toiletries (tampons, shampoo, toothbrushes, not razors) and they were so busy in their small entrance, an there were already clothes in piles in the waiting room. They gave us the name of two more shelters for women and children but neither wanted donations right now. Fred Victor took a large bag of men's clothes. Two of our members have connections with refugee housing, and one would accept 3-4 bags of children's clothes if they were really in good shape. We also put aside a bag for iSpy, a for profit children's clothing resale store in Toronto, and put aside some clothes for a few other families that we know, including a family that just lost everything in a fire.

Thanks to all the donors, we honor your contributions. -Tanya

 This will be a monthly crafting events, looking for more ideas. We have had our first up-cycling workshop with seniors! We brought in T-shirts from swaps to up-cycle into yarn and wove small mats using cardboard looms and hula hoops repurposed as looms. It was well attended, about 12-16 residents (and a few staff) spent an hour and a half weaving... a few decorated into pets, or kept as mats and we will sew the remainders into a small mat. This will be a monthly event lead by Leah, looking for ideas for future art/crafts and volunteers available in the afternoon  -Tanya

Great success at our first swap/ upcycling event, thanks to our great hosts from Glebe Road United Church and the help of Davisville Eco Club and school community who advertised the event and volunteers who helped set up, run and take down. We are experimenting with having up-cycling and repair be part of the swap events and it was great to get Works-in-Progress members together as well as recruit new makers. Adults and kids who had never used a sewing machine before sewed up a number of bags for the swap from T-shirts. Also adults and kids took turns weaving on hula hoops and experimenting with scrap bits of cloth to make stuffies, roses, and a snazzy lampshade.  Marnie walked us through a way to make a cutlery carrying device- future workshop!

Thanks for your donations, we have a beautiful shop ready to open at noon on Saturday. Donations still accepted until 5pm. Come and drop off your unwanted clothes and find some treasures. -Tanya

Upcycling workshop for March break with 3 groups of kids 8-12 years old. We made parachutes from plastic bags... we had to reach out to the neighbourhood to make sure we had enough! 40 minutes of engaged making and flying and experimenting, Washi tape works better than shiny scotch tape, and if you ball it up and hurl it from a tabletop you can get pretty high (check out top right photo!) We'll make a how-to video soon...