Sheer Desperation: Upcycled First Responder Shirt with Maximum Pocket Power

Perfectly Pocketed

Sometimes you entirely lose sight of reality while thrift shopping. This voluminous pale-green shirt caught my eye and I had to have it, despite the fact that it violated my cardinal clothing rule: pockets are absolutely mandatory. This shirt had none. In addition, the garment is so sheer as to render it useless for all practical purposes, particularly when worn by a 68-year-old woman.

Totally sheer

What to do? I decided to make this shirt work against its intrinsically frivolous nature by transforming it into a street-ready uniform as part of my ongoing First Responder series. An ancient Chinese first aid print, converted into an iron-on transfer image and then to a fabric patch, offers a handy first-aid manual for just about anything that could possibly break on the human body.

 I also used one of my go-to strategies for solving the pocket problem by adding cargo pockets. See Braving the Urban Frontier with Cargo Pockets for more creative uses for this common thrift store find.

Three simple tweaks.

Close-up

The plan is to wear this upcycled shirt as a tunic over a black t-shirt and leggings. I figure I can pack enough supplies into the pockets to keep me going in the face of just about any urban disaster for a couple of days.

Onward (and always armed with a dark sense of humor)!

First Responder Jacket

Those of us who grew up with color pamphlets for underground bomb shelters on the end table in our neo-colonial suburban tract homes have an endless fascination with survival fantasies. I can remember starting a diary at age ten or so because hey, it happened to Anne Frank. This latest piece in an ongoing series of survival art (or artful survival) is a first responder jacket.

This upcycled thrift store find was a little blah until I started applying patches created from iron-on printer paper and images borrowed from Red Cross and Marine handbooks, and a circa 1950s pamphlet.

Jacket front: lower edge of the two front flaps have been sewn closed to create large pockets

Jacket back

The patches: I've decided that patches convey a gritty urban look to just about any article of clothing. Even patches of bunnies and puppies would look gritty from a distance. You may recognize some of the same images used for these patches from an earlier project, Survival Doll.

Back patch: creating primitive weapons

Back patch: creating a water filter using a pants leg

Making splints and slings

More weapons and CPR

Surviving an atomic blast

Applying a tourniquet

Because I may want to casually fling my jacket over the back of a chair, revealing the label, and because the original label no longer represents the garment, I also stitched a patch over the original label.

Patch covering label

To confirm the fact that I'm the gal you want to be crouching under a table with when the earthquake hits, I've sewn an emergency whistle inside the lapel.

Emergency whistle

And finally, I've converted the front inside linings into hidden pockets to thwart bad guys who want to steal my stuff.

Hidden pockets

And a final thought for those tempted to take this seriously: If you lose your sense of humor there is really no point in surviving.

Recycled Rubber Bags: First Responders

More recycled rubber handbags. For the backstory see the original post here. The following are from the "first responder" series; all include inserts with first aid instruction from various sources.

Insert with graphic from Chinese first aid manual.

Insert with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation technique.

Insert from Chinese first aid manual. 

Again, it's the wear patterns on the rubber that really make the bag. Note the pebbled effect from road wear on the middle bag. The inserts are protected with a top layer of clear vinyl, and backed with a panel of rubber and then stitched into the bag. The security people at airports always stop me to discuss these bags. They seem to love them.