The Devil wears Primark

Friday is the "Wrong Trousers" Day at school, with all sorts of fun things happening and money being raised for Children's Hospices in the UK. Claire, our Music Co-ordinator, is organising the day, and asked if I could manage to make her some 'Wrong Trousers -' with a 'Music Rocks' theme. I got some stripey fabric in IKEA on Monday and using more blessed Bondaweb, I appliqued some letters and musical motifs.

Here are the pieces laid over the sofa, before I sewed them up and put a tape drawstring through the waist. Took them into school today for her to try, and mercifully they fitted and she was pleased with them!

Making them took most of Tuesday morning, and then I spent the afternoon on an otter costume, two delivery men's overalls and four trees!

A few weeks back I spent an evening cutting out over 300 leaf shapes from my stash of plain green fabrics - and foolishly thought that sewing them onto simple dark brown kaftan shapes wouldn't take long! It was hot, tiring work - and that was sitting comfortably at a table using a good machine. Four trees took over 3 hours to decorate. Having watched the Panorama Primark Programme the night before [what attractive alliteration!] my thoughts were with all those poor Indian children sewing beads and sequins on 'cheap' garments for the UK market. I am all for thriftiness and spending my pennies wisely - but please God, never let me seek to save money through the mindless exploitation of others - or the abuse of children.

The Panorama programme was good insofar as it went - but I would have liked a bit more information about other brands. I can see that if you pay only £5 for a heavily embellished tee-shirt, someone hasn't been paid a fair rate per hour for the work. But what about other brands - the most expensive dress I've ever bought came from Monsoon, and is hand beaded - but who did the sewing on that? and were they paid a fair rate? I cannot presume that because I paid a lot, the workers who made it saw any benefit.

I think [hope!] that I have done all the costumes now. I have really enjoyed making them, but I am ready to move on to other things!