Sewing meetup to attract more members

[AmeliaG]

Hey all. I’ve been a dms member for a few years.
I would like to organize a meetup for the Dallas sewing fb group at the Space, in hopes of attracting new members.

My thought was to reserve one of the open workrooms so they could bring their own machines and work for a bit on their projects, as well as get a tour/feel of the space.

I was thinking to do it during open house hours, and of course to be present for the entire time myself.

This is separate from the fiber frolic only because 1. the Facebook group stated weekends are better, 2. I didn’t want to hijack our existing social time without asking.

[coloneldan]

I did something similar for blacksmithing and I think it went well.

[Julie-Harris]

You’re welcome to set this up on our Meetup and social media if you like. PM me if you’d like for me to give you access.

[John_Marlow]

One benefit (to the attendees) is that we have a decent cutting table. That might attract people.

[Hardsuit]

We also usually have rooms with enough space to do larger items, such as Astrud’s fleece quilts.

She usually goes in to Interactive and pushes a couple tables together when she’s serging the edges, etc …

[John_Marlow]

That’s a beautiful quilt!

Most people don’t have large cutting tables at home so that might be an inducement.

For quilts we’re typically cutting small pieces that fit on our cutting mats, but it’s a different issue for garments. Does anyone remember how large our largest cutting mat is?

[dryad2b]

The newly-donated ones would fit a … 15’ table, I think? We already have mats that fit on top of 2 of the tables in Interactive together.

[dryad2b]

Plus, Fiber Frolic is more about hand-work, and things that can be done sitting at the tables.

[AmeliaG]

@dryad2b I think I missed you by a few minutes.
I was in the sewing room tidying up. Wiping down surfaces and little shreds of thread, etc…

Do we think some of us could get together and examine the junked up boxes around the cutting tables?

And one of the lights is out, making the room quite dark.

I’m happy to put in the physical labor on the boxes and lights, I don’t want to move things that might be important.

P

[dryad2b]

If you’re talking about letting people bring their own machines, Interactive is a better choice. The U-haul box and the one next to have our new-ish mega-mats.

[AmeliaG]

Sorry I was talking kind of fast! The mega mats are super cool! and I wasn’t worried about them at all, and it wasn’t my intention to throw stuff away at all, I just planned to sweep and fold fabric in boxes etc…

I was wondering if it was ok if I pull out the boxes under the cutting table, sweep up the dirt under there, and refold the fabric in them. I’ll keep it together by type (knit/woven/utility etc)?

The only other thing I wanted to tidy was the bolts of fabric up on top of the shelving. Some have come unrolled a bit, I was just going to roll them back up and stack them back up neatly.