Completed - Kinder Safety Vests

I finally finished stitching clear vinyl pockets on to the backs of 65 High Visibility safety vests for our kinder. Yes, that's right, 65 of them. Here's a tip for you for free: if someone happens to ask if you can sew some clear vinyl pockets onto 65 of anything, you should probably just say no!

Although, on the plus side, I did save the kinder $660 of hard earned fundraising money which can now be spent on paints and puzzles and toys for the kinder, so I do feel pretty good about that. And of course, if the children do have to be evacuated in an emergency, they will be wearing High Vis safety vests with all their personal info safely tucked into a little vinyl pocket on the back, which will keep them as safe as possible, and I feel really good about that.

Many thanks to Liesl for putting me onto the teflon foot, best $25 I've ever spent.

More on the safety vests

Not surprisingly I'm still struggling a bit with sewing vinyl onto nylon!

This is the pocket I'm sewing on; the angled bit sticking out to the right will work like an envelope flap and will be tucked in to keep the Information Card in place, so it can't slide out of the pocket opening.

The first challenge was how to keep the vinyl pocket in place on the vest in order to sew it. I can't pin it as the pins will leave holes in the vinyl, but blu-tack seems to work fine! Only, I can't put blu-tack on the vest itself as it doesn't come off (found that out the hard way, lucky it's a sample vest!), but the paper template is stuck to the vest with sticky tape, and the vinyl pocket is stuck to the paper with blu-tack. Can anyone say "complicated"?

Here is the vinyl pocket in place, ready for sewing.

When I went to Spotlight for materials (and advice) I was assured that I did not need a special foot to sew thin clear vinyl, apparently it will 'glide right through as the feed dogs are underneath'. I have done a little bit of research, and thought I may have to buy a teflon foot, but was again assured that my regular foot would be fine.  Fail.

Have you met my old friend Quick Unpick?

A quick fix was in order as I was not driving back to Spotlight to buy a teflon foot. Some powder, although a bit messy, did the trick.

With some powder on the vinyl it did glide under the foot for much better results (and wiped off pretty easily too).

I also discovered that reverse stitching to lock the threads is a bad idea when sewing with vinyl. Instead, I pulled the top thread through to the wrong side and tied off the threads before trimming.

Here is the 'envelope flap' out...

And tucked in to stop the card falling out.

So now I have the method sorted on the sample vest, only 60 more to go. Wish me luck!

My Creative Space

My Creative Space this week is filled with fluorescent nylon vests, metres of clear vinyl, and some upholstery thread.

Our kinder has just acquired 60 Preschool sized Fluorescent Safety Vests for the children to wear in case of an emergency evacuation. (We live in a very high risk area for bushfires so evacuation is a real possibility). Each child has an Emergency Information Card displaying their name and containing inside all their personal information that they must wear during an emergency. Previously they have been worn on a lanyard around the neck (which did create some safety issues in itself). However, now that we have these very bright safety vests, each child's card can be attached to the vest itself. The (fairly expensive) vests were the bright idea of The Bloke Who Lives At My Place, and were acquired courtesy of a local government grant. Upon enquiring at a few alterations businesses he was quoted $660 to have a clear vinyl pocket sewn onto the back of the vests. $660!!! Don't worry, I said, I'm sure I can do it.

I'll keep you posted. Thansk for hosting Kirsty! For more Creative Spaces, click here.