Connie's Diary: Winter Uniforms for Sam and the Crew

The winter uniforms for the crew require embroidered patches for the hoodies, jackets, and trackies. The patches we need are the Love Your Sister patches and all the major sponsors, because we want people to be able to see the organisations that are making Love Your Sister possible. We did a bit a of research and found that it is about $10 per patch, and we need over 150 patches, that’s over $1500 we need for the winter uniforms.

We contacted a heap of embroidery companies to ask if any could help us with a reduced rate for the patches. We were absolutely amazed when countrywide embroidery came forward and offered to do all of our embroidery free of charge. Emma and the team at Country wide embroidery have been friendly and very helpful. There is such generosity in our community it really is amazing how people and businesses have come together to support this cause.

Within a matter of days, they had completed the proofs, confirmed the designs and only a week later, we had the patches in the post. Country wide embroidery were so prompt, and professional and produced great looking patches that will make our winter uniforms look really professional.

So, now that I have the patches, I am able to sew them onto the jackets and hoodies for the winter uniforms for the crew. It is a surprise, so I am not telling Sam about them, I will just send them to Perth. He has mentioned how it is getting colder now that they are further south and winter is approaching. I hope they like their uniforms.

My friend Sue came around with her sewing machine and we set about sewing on over a hundred patches to various winter clothing items. We called it the Love Your Sister Stitch-a-thon, and there was much chocolate needed to keep us inspired. We worked into the wee hours of the morning, for several nights, and eventually finished the uniforms. There are heavy jackets, 2 hoodies each and wet weather gear, for all the crew, not just Sam. I am officially all stitched out!

Here is my husband trying on the jackets that the crew will get, I wanted to see how they looked!

Caps and Beanies

Back in Feb I was looking for the perfect Love Your Sister caps, and surprisingly I found it at a servo. I rang the number of head office of the supplier, Aerial (Pacific Optics) and spoke with Jo, at head office who was so helpful. She found the caps I was talking about, on a very bad description from me, and tracked down a few that were left over from the summer season. Unfortunately they weren’t going to be making any more until next summer. A few days later I got a message from Jo, she had managed to find about 60 of the caps in the warehouse and Aerial were willing to donate them free of charge. WE sent them off to country wide, fully expecting to pay for the embroidery, and country wide embroidered them free of charge, so the proceed form these cap sales will be entirely for breast cancer research. More overwhelming generosity, it really is so heart-warming how so many people give in so many different ways, giving what they can, all contributing to the fundraising success of Love Your Sister.

These awesome caps were donated by Pacific Optics and embroidered for free by Countrywide Embroidery.

 

 

T-shirts

Since the beginning of the event we have wanted to make T-shirts to sell. We couldn’t do it straight away because we didn’t have budget to get started. But once we had raised some money, we got permission to spend some of the raised funds on merchandise in the knowledge that we would be spending money to make even more. And there is a lot of demand for Love Your Sister T-shirts, and other merchandise. We get heaps of requests every day about buying T-shrts.

Well, I have finally been able to secure a very competitive deal with Copperhead Screen Printing, who have gone even lower than the next lowest quote, and have included extra colours for the same price. They have also been able to source the same colour pink fabric across all the styles that we want to stock, Men’s Women’s and children’s, and it is the perfect colour for Love Your Sister.

So, I am very excited to announce that the T-shirts have been printed; they are available in a variety of sizes from kid’s size 4 all the way up to men’s 3XL, with women’s n a nice shapely, fitted cut in a variety of sizes, so there is something for everyone in our range.

They will be available for sale roadside from the van by the crew wherever they stop for fundraising and events from Perth (It will take a while to ship them over to Perth). Meanwhile back at base Emma and I are working furiously on an online shop. When we finally get it up you will be able to buy not only T-shirts, but notepads, pens, wristbands and ribbons, temporary tattoos and a huge variety of stickers, and coming soon will be the Love Your Sister Sticker Family stickers. There are also bookmarks, postcards and phone covers and soon there will be caps and beanies available. I will keep you posted on when our shop goes live and what sort of wonderful stuff you can buy to support the Love Your Sister cause even more.

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Of course, please continue your support by donating!