Upcycled Wearable Art

At the recent Association of Pacific West Quilters http://apwq.org/ Symposium, held August 12-15, 2010 in Olympia, Washington, quilt designer and author Lorraine Torrence http://www.lorrainetorrence.com/ and Jane Moxey coordinated an evening event called the Upcycled Challenge. Contestants were challenged to make garments out of something they already owned that they were not planning to use, such as ready-made clothing, embellishments, found objects, threads, trims, or other “impulse-driven, still-unused crafting purchases sitting in their sewing space which will be so happy to be used for this challenge!” To make it even more interesting, there was a suggested time limit of one hour for garment construction. Any construction technique was acceptable—gluing, tearing, stitching by hand or machine, hammering, stapling, or pinning.

Since Jane and Lorraine were the event’s hosts, they had to make and wear their own upcycled garments that evening. And what do most quilters have in the back of their closet? Those souvenir quilt show canvas tote bags, of course, and Lorraine used hers to make this adorable jacket.
The contest was fun for all, and completed projects ranged from fun and goofy to beautiful and very wearable garments. Sounds like a great guild or bee activity!