Help Stitched Up Get Mobile

Today marks one year since our crowdfunding campaign reached its target! Thanks to you guys, our wonderful supporters, we raised the money to build our dream workshop-space-on-wheels, a custom-built bike trailer. To celebrate this date, we thought we'd share some photos with you of what we've been up to in the 12 months since we reached our target, and how we've put the trailer to use. The build was completed by Alfred Chow (aka Maker of Things) in April this year - to our long and slightly challenging specifications (!). Much of it was made with reclaimed materials and bits and bobs that Alfred found lying around. In the months that followed we've been taking our workshops out and about Greater Manchester, teaching skills in upcycling and mending clothes, making upcycled bunting on hand-powered sewing machines and spreading the word about sustainable fashion. You might have seen us at; Chorlton Arts Festival, Chorlton - May 2016 Envirolution Festival, Platt Fields Park - June Celebrate Festival, Manley Park, Whalley Range - July Through the Mill Festival, Cutting Room Square, Ancoats - September Celebration of Cycling Event, Longford Park, Stretford - September Huge thanks to all of you for helping to make our bike trailer happen. We're excited to see what 2017 brings for us and our bike trailer. Here's to another year of emission-free transport! This year we need your help again! We have entered our new project into the Aviva Community Fund - Manchester Repair Cafe. This is a free monthly event where the community can get help fixing all manner of household items: bikes, technology, clothing etc. It's a social event with a purpose - getting together with likemided people and repairing things to keep them out of landfill. However, we need your votes to reach the shortlist! Visit the project page here to find out more about it, and how you can vote for us and some other fab Manchester initiaitives. VOTE FOR US: https://www.avivacommunityfund.co.uk/voting/project/view/16-1949 Enormous thanks as always for all your support, we couldn't do these things without you! Stitched Up x

With our new bike trailer up and running (spotted at the Chorlton Arts Festival at Envirolution in Platt Fields Park) we wanted to celebrate and say a big thank you to all of you that helped make it happen by having a party! At 5pm on Saturday the 2nd of July we’ll be having a celebration at our HQ in Chorlton. The festivities will commence after our regular clothes swap (the swap runs 2-4pm, info here). We’ll be celebrating with a BBQ and drinks at our HQ. Join us in making some pom poms and bunting, which we’ll use to add a Stitched Up touch to our bike trailer’s parasol. We’ll also be holding the official naming ceremony of our fabulous bike trailer and giving out prizes for all those who got involved in the crowdfunder. For example those who donated over £20 will win a £5 voucher to spend at Stitched Up - this can be spent on workshops, clothes swaps, sewing machine hire or items from our reclaimed haberdashery. A few essentials to make a note of: we will provide some fizz for toasts but please feel free to bring along a bottle of whatever you fancy, the BBQ will consist of veggie hot dogs but again bring any additional nibbles or treats for the barbie! Children are welcome, and we’re dog friendly too, if pooch is on a lead. The party will run till 7pm or until we’ve eaten and drank everything. We’re looking forward to seeing you all you lovely lot and celebrating our going mobile. Lets hope the weather holds up! Stitched Up x

Exciting news - Alfred brought our trailer over to Stitched Up HQ last week so we could try it out. It's very nearly ready - he is currently fitting the doors and other finishing touches and thinks it will be completed by the end of next week. YAY! It's beautiful and an absolute feat of engineering - we couldn't be more pleased! Plus as you can see it's very roomy so we won't be short of space. Next step is for us to add our Stitched Up branding, and set a date for our 'trailer party' - stay tuned :D

Hello everyone! We hope you've all had a fantastic start to the year. Ours has been wonderfully busy, and we've suddenly realised that you guys are well overdue an update on our bike trailer.. Well, it's all coming along nicely! After an initial meeting with us, Alfred, our talented designer/maker and upcycler extraordinaire has created a prototype of the trailer. He brought it round to us a couple of weeks ago to try it for size, and now he's got started on the real deal! If you want to follow Alfred's progress, he's posting regular Twitter updates on the trailer https://twitter.com/Maker_of_Things Meanwhile, we're working on a few spring/summer engagements to unveil our new wheels... We cannot wait - thank you all for funding and supporting our new green venture :)

Wow, we did it! Thank you so much everyone for all your generous pledges... To Unicorn Grocery and #MakeMCR for those biggies, but to absolutely all of you, however much you pledged - you are a wonderful lot and we are so grateful! Can't wait to get cracking on this project - updates to follow soon!