2022-12-16 SPLAT Curiosity Report: Volume 13, Issue 3
Featured Story
What’s Sewing On?
When I started as manager of our makerspace last year we had 1.5 sewing machines and they were pushed in the corner. These sad machines needed a little love and someone to teach patrons how to use them.
Use of the one functioning machine was slow at first. The news that the machine was up and running spread slowly and the machine saw some use last fall. In the spring semester I found myself teaching a line of students how to hem pants and alter thrift finds.
Over the summer I was able to upgrade our machine from the Singer Start to a Brother SE600 sewing/embroidery machine. Since classes started this fall, I have seen a steady increase in usage in the machine. We have had a waiting line for the machine multiple times. One would think that being the fall it is all costumes for Halloween. This hasn’t been the case. The rest of the projects have been hemming pants, resizing shirts, and creating garments from scratch.
I had a look around the web to see if it was just the MILL experiencing this surge in use. Besides the rise in sales of machines due to mask making there is no real information on this. I did find a brief news clip that reported on a sewist that saw a rise in people wanting to learn to quilts since the pandemic.
I reached out to Seattle University’s makerspace Billodue to ask if they have also seen a lot of use of their sewing machines. Here is what Rachel had to say, Sewing is our most popular offering. And I think sewing is particularly popular with the current college kid generation as they’re into thrifting, repurposing, repairing and sustainability.
Thrifting! This makes total sense. Sustainability and being money wise has been a focus of the students that are learning in the MILL. Being self-reliant is also a big component in learning to sew. I look forward to seeing the new projects.
By Jessica Fleener
Fail Forward
We’ve all been there. You pour your heart into a program, and no one shows up. You try something new, and you fall on your face. Sound familiar? Fail Forward is the place to share your failures, and give you the opportunity to share what you learned from them. Did you promote your program in a different way after no one showed up? Maybe you took a new approach to the new thing you were excited about? Awesome! Share your story via our online form so others can learn, and realize that failure is often part of the process.
Keep an Inventory!
We’ve been doing a lot of Fall Clean-up over at my library. One of the things that we tend to fail at is keeping an inventory of what items are being stored away, so we can find them again! It’s almost like a treasure hunt, seeing what we can find tucked away in the corners that could have been useful at a program earlier this year, or that we purchased a replacement of! But, the other side of the treasure hunt applies too we found items that nobody expected to find, such as two unopened boxes of Borax that had been covered in paper and used in a display years ago. Time to start planning a slime making program!
By Mike Sloan
Crush Corner
Is there a library you follow on social media who is always doing new and exciting things? How about a blog you follow that inspires you? What about a new idea, book, or resource that you want to share? Library Crush Corner is a place for those working in Idaho libraries to share what inspires them, and who or what they’re crushing on… in a professional sense. Share your story via our online form so we can publish it in a future issue!
The Great Give Back
In 2017, the Suffolk County Public Library Directors Association partnered with other library systems in New York to create The Great Give Back. The initiative’s main goal is to encourage New York library patrons to give back to their communities. A one-day event, The Great Give Back continues to bring outstanding results.
In 2021, 263 New York libraries participated in the event with over 3,000 patrons joining the effort. After only one day, over 20,000 items were collected during The Great Give Back. Items donated included everything from books to clothing to pet supplies!
The New York libraries held their 2022 Great Give Back event on October 15. While the numbers haven’t been posted yet, it seems they had another great turnout! Forty-two libraries participated and listed events included: making dog and cat blankets, writing cards for kids in the hospital, picking up litter throughout the community, and creating emergency food bags for senior citizens during cold weather. However, there were TONS of wonderful programs throughout New York. I highly encourage interested readers to view their full schedule here: https://thegreatgiveback.org/index.php/suffolk/.
Recently, I have been hoping to get more involved in helping others in my community. This is a wonderful reminder that libraries have the opportunity to accomplish so much giving in a single day. We will be participating in North Idaho College’s food drive this fall, but I also hope to incorporate more ways to give back through our programming.
Have you ever held a program for donating back to the community? I’d love to hear what you did and how it went! As always, feel free to shoot me an email at bahorton@nic.edu.
By Brooke Horton
SPLAT explores the ever-evolving library world and supports library folks as they adapt to meet the needs of their communities. Library folk throughout the state of Idaho volunteer to serve on the Special Projects Library Action Team (SPLAT). Learn more about SPLAT at splat.lili.org
SPLAT is brought to you by the Idaho Commission for Libraries and was made possible, in part, by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (LS-246156-OLS-20). The views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.