Chalkbag Sewing Workshop
Hej, I’m Lily! I came to Denmark as a volunteer to work in a culture house called Kulturfabrikken for one year. Kulturfabrikken houses many different things including concerts, art classes and workshops, as well as a skate club and a climbing club. I’ve been climbing for many years myself and was very happy to be welcome by the local climbing community here. On the other hand I also really enjoy sewing and creating. That’s why, for my personal Solidarity Project, I wanted to combine the sport of climbing with the joy of creating. I organised a workshop for climbers to sew their own Chalkbags (little pouches used to store chalk for your hands while you climb).
Before I could decide if this workshop would happen I had to sew many prototypes and develop sewing patterns for the bags. Once I new hit would work out I started planning the dates and finding the right location. Luckily we have a lot of space at Kulturfabrikken so I could hold the workshop in our Cafe´. After that it was time to figure out a PR plan. I designed flyers, posters and social media posts, wrote description texts and made promotion videos. At the same time I started sourcing materials. I wanted the Chalkbags to be made of as much second hand materials as possible so I found donated fabrics, buttons and ribbons. The materials I couldn’t find second hand I got at a local sewing store. I had several meetings with the colleagues helping me, to talk about how the workshops would be executed best and who would take which task. In the end all that was left was setting up, hosting the workshop it’s self, documenting it by taking fotos and videos and the cleaning up after…
The workshop days were a huge success! Many people of all ages came by to design and sew their own Chalkbag. I was especially happy, that some people even came on both days to continue their projects. It was a great vibe, a little stressful in-between, but over all everyone just had a lot of fun. When the table was full and I couldn’t talk to everyone at the same time, people started to explain the next steps to each other and help out if someone wasn’t sure what to to. It really felt like the whole community worked together, which was exactly what I dreamed of 🙂
Organising and executing this workshop has taught me many practical things like managing time, delegating tasks, finding ways to promote my projects and teach my skills to others. But most of all it showed me that you can make your ideas happen. That if you feel like you are missing something or would love to participate in something, you can be the one to create that! If you wish for community, go out and built a space for community to happen!
ESC Solidarity Projects 