Sewing Cafes

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Description

Massimo Menichinelli:

"Just like Fab Labs and Hackerspaces for the Open Hardware (and Design) movement, the DIY and Microproduction Craft movement has its own places for making, experimenting, prototyping, learning and community building: Sewing Cafes. At least since 2006 in cities like New York, Los Angeles and Boston (like Quilter’s Way in West Concord), rent-by-the-hour sewing machine cafes have opened, and now they can be found in many countries across Europe as well. There is the Sweat Shop in Paris, where users can purchase access to a Singer sewing machine (€ 6.00 per hour), the Linkle in Berlin (€ 5.00 per hour). In the UK some examples are Homemade London (£ 10.00 per hour), Make It Glasgow (£ 5.00 for one hour, £ 7.50 for two or £ 10.00 for three) and the Needlebugs sewing café in Manchester, based in a not-for-profit community arts space called Nexus Art Cafe.

There is even a Sewing Cafe in Melbourne, Australia (the Thread Den) and a Sewing Café Locator, though still under construction.

Even Etsy has a community workspace that provides equipment and donated materials where Labs members gather to make items, take and teach workshops, and attend special events. It is a permanent office called the Etsy Labs in New York. The site’s customer support, marketing/PR, business and communications teams operate out here." (http://www.openp2pdesign.org/2011/open-design/business-models-for-diy-craft/)