Combining forces and sharing skills is what Wirral MakeFest is all about – matching makers with a need or finding sustainable solutions. Our directors, Julie Kay and Alison Bailey Smith have combined forces this year. Julie or Jules often can be found running small crafting workshops with her other hat on for “Liscard Links” or for Wirral Older People’s Parliament – building a supportive community and friendships. Although she has a studio, we’re never sure how she does it all. Alison’s studio is our HQ and also haven to recycling metal, plastic and fabric – she teaches rag rugging, upcycling and makes her own creations which have been collected by the National Museums of Scotland and private collectors are around the world.
Last year, we were approached by Sue Higginson OBE for her work supporting the Mayor’s charities, “Incubabies” and the “North West Blind Sailing Club” to create bunting from waste fabric. We jumped at the idea as we needed bunting too and have been given several giant windsurfing sails. The textile industry contributes around 10% of global greenhouse emissions and 20% of global waste water production. This is more than shipping and aviation combined. With proper collection and sortation, many items of clothing can be reused to give them a new lease of life. Such a good idea that we have gone with the ENGAGE -ACTION_REPEAT byline for this year and doing it all again.
In Europe, the United Kingdom is classed as the highest consumer of new clothing, with the average person buying 26.7kg of new clothes each year with the lifetime for a piece of clothing estimated to only be 2.2 years. This leads to around 300,000 tonnes of used clothes either being burned or sent to landfill on an annual basis. We are fortunate to have many textiles recyclers represented in Wirral MakeFest and have worked previously with donated school uniforms from Wirral Fuss during last year’s Wirral MakeFest.
Join us in the foyer of Birkenhead Central Library for our welcome party and bunting creation station on Saturday the 10th of May.
