By Melissa Blewitt

Condobolin’s Terryll Cassidy has won the NSW County Women’s Association Recycled Article Competition.

Her unique “Colourful Spring Bouquet Dress and Necklace” was awarded the overall Grand Prize, which was announced at the State Conference at Merimbula on Wednesday, 5 May.

The first stepping stone was winning first place in the Condobolin CWA Recycled competition, then winning first place at the Oxley Group Recycled competition.

Terryll’s dress is hand sewn and is totally wearable and took her 18 months to complete.

“I am very proud of what I have achieved and very honoured to have been chosen to receive this award.”

In her artist’s statement Terryll said her inspiration was to “create a wearable handcrafted “Waste to Art and a Recycled’ dress and necklace, by upcycling scrap and waste household products.”

“Typically, involving creative re-use, and artful considerations to make it a uniquely artistic, edgy and chic. This dress, with matching necklace, can actually be worn comfortably, highlighting the artist expression of transforming unwanted products by recycling and upcycling.

“This typifies the artistic expression using the “Recycling” concept.

“To begin, I made a size 10 dress using left over material from a previous project. This was the basis of my Recycled wearable art project.

“Sourcing and collecting many hundreds of bread ties/clips and hundreds of various size plastic collars, extra-large, large, medium, small to miniature from milk bottles, drink bottles, jars and so on. The collars were then covered in strips of scrap fabric to create flowers and leaves. These were laid out in patterns and were all sewn on by hand. All buttons were sourced from a number of charity organisations.

“The necklace using the same bread ties and material covered plastic collars was made, threaded onto “O” rings and hung on a plaited leather band.

“This then completes the recycled outfit.

“Recycled” wearable art fashion is to source reclaimed, recycled, unconventional materials to re-sculpt, redefine and repurpose instead of going automatically into landfill.

“Using a little imagination, reverse rubbish can be transformed into funky wearable creations.

“Everyone can help our environment by drawing attention to wastefulness, reduce and reuse where possible, conserving our precious resources. This will then benefit everyone and our precious environment,” her statement concluded.

For her efforts, Terryll received the CWA NSW Recycled Article Pepetual Trophy and a substantial monetary prize.