This is my new venture!
I have ranted in the past about the lack of ‘community’ in the town where we live, so I have started to take some small steps to try and help.
I met a lovely lady called Verity who already runs some sewing workshops in town, and is a very experienced seamstress. Like me, Verity is passionate about re-using old things, and trying to engage the local community with crafting and upcycling, so we have joined forces to create “Make It Better..”
The idea is to run workshops and a mending/crafting/sewing café, as well as Swishes, Vintage Craft Days, and Charity Sewing Days.
I am very excited!
We have just had our first evening café thingy-which we have billed as a mending/crafting/sewing evening (we need a catchier title I know). The idea that is that people can come along with any projects they have on the go, their mending basket, anything they are stuck with, and we can all help each other out (so encouraging skill sharing), have a natter, meet other local crafters, and eat cake!
It was very cold, and we had only decided to go for it a couple of weeks beforehand, so hadn’t really had a chance to do too much in the way of advertising, but we had 5 lovely ladies brave the cold, and come and join us.
Everyone bought bits and pieces of projects with them-a zip was replaced, various bits of clothes were ’embellished’ and upcycled, and a granny square was crocheted! And cake was eaten.
It was a really lovely evening, and the plan is to make it a regular monthly event, so hopefully, if we can get the word out there, we will get a few more people each time 🙂
And we’ve already booked a date for our first family friendly Upcycle! workshop in the library on a Saturday morning-we are going to be making Pinwheels from old fabric, and magazines, and old comics/sheet music etc, and have a toy ‘Give and Take’ table running alongside.
AND we have booked a local Church Hall for a sewing day (inspired by Becksie from A Year without Supermarkets) making pillowcase dresses for the Dress A Girl Around the World project.
Yay! Having mulled it all over for months and procrastinated, it feels good to be finally getting some plans off the ground.
Just hope everyone else is as keen as I am…
My Make Do and Mend Year 
Try advertising it for free on Ecomodo too, offered as a skill share. Would love to come, but too far away! 😉
Great idea-will check it out! Thankyou 🙂
What a great thing to start a group you want to see in your community (kind of like the slightly pretentious adage of ‘be the change you want to see in the world’) and a good start. Random idea: Maybe you could create long cotton hippy skirts made from strips of everyones old clothes and sell them for charity money.
Thanks Chrissy. There are lots of things we could make from unwanted stuff-hadn’t occurred to me to try and flog it though-will give it some thought 🙂
make it better is a popular name – friends of the earth has been using it to try and tackle less than ethical mobile and other gadget production. Sounds like you are on to a winner, hope it goes well. Nicola http://homemadekids.wordpress.com
Oh crikey-hope they don’t mind. Great minds and all that..!
Best of luck Jen. Sounds like a fab idea so I hope it catches on.
Thanks Heather 🙂
Had you thought of making and distributing Morsbags with your new group? Have a look at my Post ‘Guerillas in the midst of Farnham’ for details of this.
Ginny of Alice and Ginny mentioned these to me-I will check out your post-thankyou!
Sounds awesome! I’d be there if I was a local (ok maybe not if it was cold and yucky!)
Thankyou! Surely this weather has to improve sometime soon…
Well done you! I know Ive said it before, but you really have come such a long way in the last 7 months, Im very impressed :o)
Thanks Jo, and thanks for all your support and lovely comments 🙂
That’s a fantastic thing to have started – well done you!
Thanks Robyn!
Hey just wanted to give you a quick heads
up. The words in your content seem to be running off the screen in Internet explorer.
I’m not sure if this is a format issue or something to do with browser compatibility but I figured I’d
post to let you know. The style and design look great though!
Hope you get the problem solved soon. Many thanks
Hi there
Thanks for letting me know. How strange. Wonder if anyone else is having this problem? Any ideas how I might fix it?!
Thanks for reading, and thanks again for the heads up.