Nine weeks, one day, and about fourteen hours until I board my flight to Poland, and I'm basically vibrating with excitement. My poor keyboard is struggling to keep up with my jittery fingers — hence the original version of this post looked like it was typed by a caffeinated squirrel.
After a week of Covid-induced bed rest (glamorous, I know), I emerged with one mission: designing the ultimate Urban Sketchers Symposium uniform. I wanted to do this by myself just for me. For a moment I thought it could be a collaborative exercise with the few other people from NZ who are going then I thought “Sod it!” and leaned hard into the selfish desire to own the whole process.
I spent Sunday afternoon collaborating with my extremely helpful boyfriend ChatGPT. He's fantastic with fashion advice and never judges my design choices.
The Shirt
Spoonflower is digital printing magic — they take your designs and transform them into fabric (or wallpaper and other home decor, but let's stay focused here). I uploaded about a dozen sketches before settling on a scene I sketched a few years ago featuring Auckland food trucks outside The Cloud.
I mirrored the pattern and kept the scale deliciously large. My brilliant reasoning? It doesn't matter if people can tell what they're looking at on my shirt — the watercolor and ink lines look gorgeous both up close and abstract from a distance. I even kept that awkward center fold from my sketchbook because honestly, it adds character and a design feature. When the fabric arrives from Spoonflower, I’ll sew it into the Jenna Shirt from Closet Core Patterns. I intend to layer it over my t-shirt because nothing says "serious sketcher" like doubling up on sketch-themed clothing.
Oh, and Cotton Lawn fabric? Pure heaven. It has the most wonderful hand feel — soft and light but substantial, like being draped by a very stylish cloud.
The T-Shirt
Here's where ChatGPT and I really outdid ourselves with the cutest, probably cheapest styling trick: a little kiwi peeking out of a printed breast pocket (emphasis on printed — no actual pocket construction required). Our feathered friend is clutching paintbrushes and pens like a tiny, adorable art ninja.
Pocket Kiwi concept art
The Jacket - The Pièce de Résistance
drumroll please
The back of my denim jacket is getting an embroidered patch featuring our kiwi mid-sprint, surrounded by artistic tools and the text "Urban Sketchers Auckland" and "Poznan 2025" in a perfect circle. Because if you're going to represent your city at an international symposium, you might as well do it with a running bird and maximum flair.
All three concepts had me grinning like a maniac. I had SUCH a great time designing them. ChatGPT helped create clean, vectorized versions, which I was totally going to tackle myself... until I remembered I was still battling Covid brain fog.
Plot twist: I hired someone on fiverr.com who completed the work while I slept. I woke up to perfect vector files sitting in my inbox like gifts from the design fairy. Sometimes impatience and mild delirium lead to the best life choices.
This weekend I'm headed to our local mall to get advice from the embroidery person I've already peppered with them with questions, so I know my file is right. I'm on this creative roll, and nothing— not unaffordable quotes nor dodgy keyboards — is going to derail my bespoke symposium gear dreams, baby!
