Summer serendipity

We generally don't host WiP events in the summer- everyone has spotty schedules, the beach beckons, etc. so rather than public facing events we mostly get together for collective work parties or say yes to other invites. This summer we had one work party and a number of cool invites to other community  events. 

In July we had a backyard work party midweek, after cancelling more public facing events because of rain. Tanya hosted, and Shams came with a logo removal challenge.  Shams is a very public textile activist and educator and a magnet for people and institutions with textile waste problems 9check out her instagram HERE).  She had agreed to take some branded uniforms from a school rebranding their logo, rendering clothing with the old logo unusable for the school.  She promised to make sure she would remove the logo from all the items before passing them on..  So the bulk of the afternoon was spent removing and altering logos with the few friends who came by. We used reverse applique, over embroidering by hand and machine, sewing on patches and converting tshirts into bags with a deep cut and reinforcing the polyester material to make them last.

Great creative challenge and really good conversations amongst the birds and bees on a sunny afternoon.  We were joined by some neighbourhood friends and a new friend we'd met at the last Clothing swap.

LATER in JULY we were invited to be a vendor at the first annual (?) Community Resale Market hosted by community partner Double Take Thrift store at 310 Gerrard street East. Leah and I were free so we took a half day slot and survived a rainy start, sold some work from artists in the collective, met lots of cool visitors and other vendors.  The store has a newly revamped upcycling studio as well, where they host mending Mondays and upcycling workshops and sell damaged goods and donated materials and tools to wannabe makers.

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TWICE this summer we hosted drop in repair workshops and conversations around upcycling and repair in an old schoolroom at Fort York in Toronto.  This was a cool invite we couldn't turn down, from a former programmer at the Textile Museum.   

On July 31 Lora, Sandra, Gabrie and Tanya ran the first workshop... with Marlene dropping by to help wrap up. We had people bring in clothes for repair advice from Gabrie (you can see some of her design work HERE), Sandra (visual artist, actor animator, more HERE) and Lora did some outdoor mending to entice visitors and Lora lead us all in a coiling workshop  (you can see more of her work HERE) While we're connecting, you can see Tanya's work HERE.

On August 14th Tanya returned with a new crew of artists and makers: Amy, Delphine, Alex and Jennifer to share skills.  Alex Verkade was our ringer this time, she took a weekend off from vending her up-cycled wares to share her quilting and patching skills.  Check out her work HERE. We shared the Fort with Jully Black and friends leading aerobics in the field, pretty cool company.

At the end of AUGUST we worked with Mac Indigenous student services to prep overalls for volunteer student hosts for MacMaster Welcome week.  Ursa and Tanya worked with Marnie Saskin over 2 days to dye these poly/cotton blend suits.  These were no natural dyes, we used hot hot water in two pots, on rotation a half hour at a time, with extra powerful fabric dye.  Like a coven of witches, with naps in between, they looked fabulous, and even better once they were individualized with patches and paint by the students.

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