By Sarah Klymkiw

May 12, 2014

As part of an ongoing partnership with Queen’s Park Community School TRAID have been working with Year 9 textile students to engage with their local community outside of the confines of the school gates and with children from Malorees Junior School about the possibilities of textile reuse and recycling.

Having fun and getting creative designing hats from waste textile.
Having fun and getting creative designing hats from waste textile.

The project kicked off with a talk from TRAID followed by a school visit to the Year 6 pupils at Malorees where QPCS students met with their ‘clients’. It was an opportunity for the students to design something truly special and unique for a child that would soon be making the big leap to secondary school in the September out of unwanted and damaged jumpers that would otherwise have been discarded.

With a brief and some designing, or rather redesigning, the students up-cycled jumpers into handmade hats for the children of Malorees, decorating the jumpers with pom poms, appliqué and embroidery to personalise them.

In the textile classroom at QPC School
In the textile classroom at QPC School
At the end of the project the children from Malorees visited their future secondary school and were delighted when handed the hats that the students had made for them. Grace, aged 14 said: “It was a brilliant opportunity to work with younger children and we really enjoyed ourselves! It really made me think differently about recycling and how fun it really is! I’d love to continue in the future!”

'The Champion Here' - Malorees student experiments with creating their own logo!
‘The Champion Here’ – Malorees student experiments with creating their own logo!

Of the project, QPCS textiles teacher Carol Fitzwilliam said: “During this project between QPCS, Malorees and TRAID the students learning has been twofold. Firstly, to become aware of the social and moral issues related to being a consumer of cheap clothing; how it affects the lives of others and how they can be part of making a change in this cycle. Secondly, taking responsibility, having to make a personalised hat to a decent standard and present it to their young clients in our partner school.”