Jump Around!

Folksy is organising an 'Upcycle Christmas Competition' this year to raise money for the Sue Ryder Care charity, and I'll be taking part in it. The deal is this - you enter, print up a ticket and go to a participating Sue Ryder store to pick up 5 items to upcycle, which you then auction on Folksy, with the proceeds going to Sue Ryder Care. I thought this was an awesome idea, since I get a large portion of my materials from op-shops anyway, and it fits it almost perfectly with the cut-and-paste way I usually work.

So last Saturday, I printed up my ticket and went to the Sue Ryder store in Camden to pick up 5 items to tear apart for charity. It turned out to be slim pickings, as I only had 2 bags of stuff to choose from, but I did manage to dig through and get my mitts on 5 items in the end.

I found this brand new, fairly see-through (though it doesn't appear so in the photo) white cotton mesh tank top and gross, shiny lavender brocade blazer jacket after sifting through some of the other items in the bag. I'm not quite sure what I'll do with them yet, but rest assured that I'll be ripping that disgusting jacket apart. And as you can see from the photos, I graduated with honours from the Kate Bush School of Dance.

More digging, and I was rewarded with this white, knitted, batwinged top with lacey panels. Not completely hideous, now that I look at it again, but I think I'll be unraveling it so I can use the yarn to make up something - maybe a cape? And yes, I am wearing trackies in this photo - please don't judge me, it was before breakfast.

And lastly, I picked up this gigantic stripey men's pyjama set to complete my 5 items. The Mancreature is convinced some old guy died in this. Urgghh! I picked it mainly because it was so large, which meant that I would have loads of material to sew things from.

You can't really see it, but the trousers were ENORMOUS, which resulted in a lot of awkward tucking and folding after I put them on.

I can't wait to start cutting these things up and making pretty little things out of them. (After all, there's been some shocking atrocities committed in the name of charity recently, and it's about time to put things right.) If you're interested in bidding on items in the auction, or you want to take part in the competition, then get thee over to the Folksy site. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Folksy, it's pretty much like Etsy, but with a focus on UK sellers. I'll be posting updates as I finish making stuff.