What an amazing year we had here at Stitched Up!
2012 was the International Year of the Co-operative and we were proud to become Manchester’s newest sustainable fashion co-operative, now officially known as Stitched Up Co-operative Ltd, working hard to bring you fantastic workshops, events and opportunities to learn more about what you can do to upcycle, recycle, reuse and reduce your consumption of clothing.
We had a great start to the year with our Swap Shops at The Old Mother Hubbard Market in Fuel…
… and Stitched Up member Sara showing her upcycled collection at The Good Fashion Show during London Fashion Week
…and all of us enjoyed attending the fantastically informative talk by Lucy Siegle during the Cotton: Global Threads exhibition at the Whitworth Gallery.
Spring saw us running a clothes swap at Chorlton’s Big Green Festival, and working with Manchester Museum at their after-hours event, with a swap shop and upcycling workshop.
We celebrated International Women’s Day making recycled hair accessories with the women of the Pankhurst Centre
…and attended upcycling label Antiform’s SS12 collection launch the their studio in Leeds…
…and had a great time Clothes Swapping at The Black Lion in Salford…
Summer saw us take in the Measured Slow Fashion Show, featuring the work of local sustainable fashion designers Constanze Friedrichs and Silvia Hoya Mena…
…and we worked with PURE hair design in Bury to put on a swap shop and upcycled fashion workshop at their salon.
We attended the fantastic Mendrs Symposium in the Langdale Valley in Cumbria…
… as menders in residence for the weekend and to join in the discussion on how sustainable design solutions can tackle textile waste in the UK.
We had a great time putting on a whole weekend of upcycling workshops at Shambala festival and joined in the theme of celebration by creating our own outfits celebrating the history of fashion.
We ended the summer by leading the totally lovely Sewcialise mending and upcycling workshops at The Redbricks housing estate in Hulme…
…helping residents mend clothing and make some fantastic creations from book covers to an upcycled arrow quiver!
We also really enjoyed putting on an upcycling workshop at the brilliant Wigan Diggers Festival…
…and at The Vintage Guild Weekend in Preston, and were overwhelmed by the enthusiasm from all the parents and children who attended both of these festivals.
Autumn saw preparations start early for our involvement with Recycle for Greater Manchester’s Watch Your Waste Week, with a promotional shoot with Jon Clark of Resurrect Studios at the I&G Cohen textile recycling facility,…
…and we then brought you a dedicated series of free upcycling tutorials to get you in the mood for November’s series of free Watch Your Waste Week workshops we were to run at the end of the month.
Before Watch Your Waste Week kicked off we held some really exciting innovation and upcycling workshops at Falinge Park High School, Newall Green High School and Trafford College, in association with the Development Education Project.
And then it was time for the nine back-to-back Watch Your Waste Week workshops, which brought free upcycling and sewing workshops to the whole of Greater Manchester!
The response we had from everyone attending was fantastic and we can’t wait to do it all again!
We rounded off the Watch Your Waste Week events with the fabulous upcycling fashion show at the Museum of Science and Industry, all put together by the amazing Tracey Cliffe of Manchester upcycling label Love Me Again.
Our collection was seen on the runway alongside some of our biggest upcycling heroes, and we also ran a fun workshop and vintage dress-up box at the event… YAY!
Here we all are in all our, errr… finery…!
We ended the year on a real high in December, telling our story at the Action for Sustainable LivingChristmas celebration…
…and being interviewed as part of Radio 4’s consumer issues programme You and Yours.
It has been a great year, with Stitched Up going from strength to strength, and much more to come in 2013. So look out for us, we have plans in the running for more workshops, more clothes swaps, more sustainable fashion events and most exciting of all, OUR OWN SHOP!!
It promises to be a haven of making and mending, where everyone from absolute beginners to earth conscious fashionista revolutionaries like you, can come and learn about sewing, upcycling and sustainable fashion. There will be teas and coffees and homemade cakes, eco-fashion to choose from, sewing machines to use and many, many things to make and do for everybody!
We can’t wait to share it with you; it’s going to be amazing!!
Jim says: