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Wow, Jan, you’ve been so busy! Isn’t it wonderful how one event links to another, you are seen in one place and as a result get invited to the next. We’ve had some lovely experiences and attended lots of interesting shows and other places where morsbags can be made and/ or given away.
I love the whole list of places you’ve been to or will be attending soon. Some pods in this country have also found that food banks are a great way to get bags out into peoples’ hands. Have a great time 😀
You’re right Tori. Usually in August I’m trying to account for the drop in production. Maybe the rubbish weather helped?
I enjoyed your friend’s blog about morsbags Gudrun. I also have a “how to make a morsbag in steps” demonstration kit. I love the beautiful fabrics you’ve made into bags. Those “vintage” style fabrics are right in fashion here now. I like the wire basket you use to display – are they folded bags or kits ready to sew? Good work! 😀
Thanks for a great report Jan! You did great and sound very happy! I hope you enjoyed the evening. It is much easier logistically to just do a demo and hand-outs than to organise newbies to sew for themselves. You were so quick sewing up another dozen bags while talking and handing out bags – fantastic. 😀
Another 16 people interested is good work too. Good luck finding a drop-off point for fabric and thread, it’s well worth having. A fruit and vegetable shop near us takes in donations and phones me when they need picking up. Easy for the donors to find and they’re open predictable hours. We’ve had trouble finding somewhere to use for larger sewing workshops, perhaps your $37 could go towards that.
In this country many stores don’t mind if you stand outside and give out free bags. Some, particularly smaller stores that sell organic produce, are thrilled to work with us. In the UK the street is a public area where it is legal to stand or walk and give things away. If we accepted money for bags we’d need a licence as that would count as selling, but as they are free it is quite legal – this is the original concept behind morsbags and “guerilla bagging”.
Good luck with your next project – let us know what it is and don’t hesitate to ask if you think we might be able to help.
Thank you for some great tips and anecdotes Gudrun! 😀
We’ve had some funny people too – like the man who only wanted a bag if it was made of “cat” themed material. I explained that we used recycled leftovers and castoffs and were fresh out of cat fabric. He didn’t want to make a bag in that case.
I use people’s feeling of guilt at taking a free bag and not giving anything in return to encourage them to use the bag, not leave it in a drawer, or for “best” but take it with them as often as possible. Accepting donations of fabric / thread is great too – or get them to make some bags to pass on as well.
Yay Jan!! You’re going the whole hog! 😀
Yes we’ve done this – lots! The most recent event was the Handmade Fair in May
How much space will you have? How many machines can you fit in? How many supervisors? It’s helpful to have a person not involved in teaching / supervising outside the booth or on the entrance looking for the next customer/ talking about what you’re doing / handing out some bags you made earlier.
Will there be an electric supply? If not do you have a hand crank sewing machine or more than one? If your event is in the evening who supplies lighting – it needs to be good to thread needles.
Opinions on this vary, but I agree with you – that you’re best to start with cut out and pressed kits ready to be sewn. You’ll find that a newbie sewer can take 20 – 30 minutes to make a bag.
If you want to give more people a taster bag-making experience you may want to start them off with part-assembled bags. You could make up bags so they just need the side seams to be finished, or maybe add the label and sew the side seams.
You’ll need to think about what your policy will be about children. We don’t allow unaccompanied children to sew with us, they need to be with Mum/Dad/ Grandma who is responsible for them. What age are they responsible for themselves? Good question….
There are quite a few events like yours described on the old morsbags (now read-only) website. Here are a few to get you started –
https://morsbags.com/forum-archive/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=3122
https://morsbags.com/forum-archive/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=2733&start=30You could search for Festival of Quilts, Knitting and Stitching Shows, Textile Shows, Clarence House, Kew Gardens, Craft4Crafters. These are all events where we’ve done “make yourself a morsbag” experiences.
Jan, it might be because I’m using a mobile phone, but I still can’t see your photos 😩
I’m so glad this thread is useful to you too, Gudrun
That’s how I feel too Tori – it’s great to be part of a bigger picture.
Jan, I think you need to go back to flickr.com and make your photos public. When I clicked on the link I got –
“Jan Shea hasn’t made any photos public yet.”Hi Jan! Congratulations! I’m so pleased your fair display went very well! Exciting, isn’t it! I do hope you are able to show us some photos.
Thanks for your suggestions Offcuts 😀
Lucky you with predictable weather! It sounds like you’ll have a ball on Saturday Jan, I hope you’ll let us know how you get on. If you already have a laundry airer that will be a big help, you’ll be able to stock it up. If you have loads of bags and want them to go fast put lots on it, if you need to spin them out as stocks are a bit low just put on a few at a time.
Good luck with running another activity at the same time – that’s going to be challenging. It might be a good idea to arrange a display about morsbags and what you’re doing for people to get more information if you’ll be pushed for time – then you can invite anyone who wants to know more to have a read. Maybe have slips of paper or cards ready with your contact details for people who want to give you material or get involved in making bags themselves.
Is there somewhere local to you that you could arrange to use as a drop-off point for people who want to donate fabric? We have a deal with a local fruit & veg shop which will take in donations for us and give me a ring and I sometimes give them bags for their customers.
I’m sure you’ll have an exciting day! 😀
Hi Jan! I see Chickadeez (and friends) on the list of pods making morsbags each month. I always wonder about pods I don’t know – how are you getting on, where you give bags away, and so on, so I’m delighted to hear from you!
Clothes line display was my first thought, like yours, but you need two firm supports to tie the ends to. If it rains and the supports are holding up the canopy the bags may get wet.
(If you’re displaying bags that you don’t want to give away, “specials” for instance, thread the clothes line through the handles. We have a set of display bags that spell out “morsbags.com” and often get asked for the one with a particular letter on – for someone’s initial, for example.
If the line goes through the handles a well-meaning helper can’t give one of the vital bags away, and no-one can help themselves.)Bags on lines tend to flop and fold themselves – slip a bit of card inside if you want them to stay flat, take it out when giving the bag away and pop it in the next bag to be hung up.
I think it was Pol who made this display out of a large net – was it a curtain once? I think you attach the bags with big paper clips, or clothes pins would work too.
Rosie of Offcuts pod has a free-standing indoor clothes airer and I was going to post a link, but can’t find that particular type on sale now. This is a bit like it, but I’m sure anything of the sort would do, you’d just need to keep restocking it!
http://www.argos.co.uk/product/8505239
Later on I found a photo of it – left hand side of this photo –
If you have plenty of helpers nothing beats threading lots of bags on a person’s arms to display them. They can talk to the “customer” while he or she chooses their bag and it’s not hard to slide the bags to left or right over your linked hands to reach the bag they want.
I play a game of guessing which bag they’ll choose – nearly always a woman will pick something that matches what she’s wearing at the time and most men wonder what their wife / partner/ mum would like!I made this tablecloth with curtain hooks sewn on it. I arrange the cloth so that the hooks are on the edge of the table and hang bags on them.
It’s OK-ish – works if the customers are a little way away but not good if there are a lot of people as only the front few are aware of the bags and they’re usually right up against the table if it’s crowded, so can’t see them anyway. It has the advantage that you can restock from behind the table if getting out is a problem – maybe the neighbouring table is very close and it’s a squeeze getting out front.If all else fails, draped or folded bags can be laid on a table, simple!
Macs bags have a good combination here – lines and table.
They also have colourful information for people to read.You’ll probably come across the phenomenon of “reverse guerilla-ing”. This is where someone helps themselves to bags on display, or bags that you were not intending to hand out yet. Maybe you hung a few bags outside the venue as an advertisement – when you go to get them back they’re gone. Well you were going to give them away anyway…. Always makes us laugh
You’re welcome Tori! I find it interesting too.
Cath, thanks for posting this and for getting mentions of morsbags out. The group Make do and mend sounds as if it would have members on the morswavelength.
I’ve only recently joined facebook and don’t do any other social media, I reckon I spend long enough online as it is! Anyone else?