Solar-powered Work Wraps:100% pure Lasqueti Free Store

This all started with too much stuff: the glut of stuff at the Lasqueti Free Store and all my own stuff I need to keep on my person, even more stuff than in my purse life in Vancouver.

I work differently here on the island. I don’t need all the ID and swipe cards but I’m still attached to my iPhone and other stuff: work gloves, notebook, Sharpie, sunscreen, jack knife, After-bite, cookie-stand cash, tape measure, scissors. I also need to pocket all the collected bits and pieces that need to go elsewhere.

What I envisioned was a tool belt/waiter’s apron hybrid, but nothing too dorky that I would drop if someone dropped by. It should be a wearable artpiece, but nothing too precious that I wouldn’t get down and dirty with it.

That’s where the Free Store piles of old jeans come in. All those industrially-sewn heavy-duty pockets, those shades of worn blue-grey so much like the ocean and mountain views that surround this Gulf Island — stuff already in the world that could be put to good re-use for the stuff of my life.

I made one, then a better one, then an extra, which someone bought, then seven others asked for them. I’ve been sewing up a solar-powered storm of creative work ever since. Suddenly I am a maker of Work Wraps, heavy-duty denim garments with an extremely light ecological footprint.

Making often leads to new ideas, like the idea that Work Wraps are not for one kind of work; they don’t discriminate or segregate based on gender, age or physical shape. Whether it’s sewing or building houses, whether it’s voluntary or paid, enjoyable or arduous, it’s all work.

BELOW: A sample of the first series sold-out series of one-of-a-kind Work Wraps. (Note the furry photo bomb.)
The second series will be posted when available for purchase, $55 each.