Love volunteering at my local Repair Cafe!

[u/allaspiaggia]

This bag came into my Repair Cafe over the weekend. The cloth straps were falling apart, but the rest of the bag looked good. Owner wanted the straps a little longer - tote bags always have such short straps! Since we didn’t have any matching fabric (and tbh I didn’t want to sew new fabric straps) the owner agreed to replacements with 1.5” webbing.

Ripped the original straps out by the seams. Eyeball-measured new straps to be about 6” longer than the originals. Tbh I don’t measure with a tape very often. About 2” extra strap length inside the bag. Since the bag is just plain cotton with cotton lining, I did a box stitch instead of the original sewn line.

I used medium grey thread, because it blends in so nicely with patterns. I use grey thread for almost all my repairs. Gutermann Tera 80, which is a great all purpose nylon repair thread. Thin enough to use in my regular machine, but strong enough to last a long time. Sewn on a Singer Heavy Duty (which is not very heavy duty in general) with a size 14 needle. Webbing was from StrapWorks.com, which is an awesome resource for all things webbing and buckles. The new webbing is probably going to outlive the rest of the bag!

[u/Waiting-For-Godot-64]

Repair cafe?!?!? Where do I find one of these??

[u/allaspiaggia → u/Waiting-For-Godot-64]

https://www.repaircafe.org/en/

They’re all over! This site has a good guide on starting your own too. You don’t need much, a couple tools, a handful of handy people, and a bit of advertising. My husband and I volunteer every month, it’s a fun way to give back to the community, also we both love puzzles and repairs are basically a very useful puzzle.

[u/NameEducational9805 → u/allaspiaggia]

I just found one in my city!!

[u/asifIknewwhattodo → u/NameEducational9805]

None in mine 😞 I'm so jealous!

[u/Knitapeace → u/allaspiaggia]

I’m thinking about volunteering just so I can learn what they do and what processes work, because I’d like to do something similar with only clothing and textiles. But I’m concerned about how to keep supplies in stock without using all my own money, and protecting myself against liability.

[u/allaspiaggia → u/Knitapeace]

Talk to the people who run your local cafe, if you have one. Ours is at a Makerspace, which is a 501c3 nonprofit and has insurance/etc. I honestly don’t know much about the liability part, we do have a sign that basically says “all repairs are done by volunteers and at your own risk”.

We are truly spoiled to be located inside a Makerspace, because we have basically every tool/material imaginable, wood shop, jewelry making, metal smithing, electronics, etc. I have a great textiles studio within the Makerspace, which I have stocked with my own supplies (mostly thrifted/donated).

We cover costs from donations - people usually donate $5-20 per item, which is a LOT less than what they’d pay a professional, so it works out well for everyone. Last month we took in over $200, which covers costs like buying new plugs (we fix a LOT of lamps) and also pizza for volunteers.

[u/highmaintenanceman → u/allaspiaggia]

omg thank you for posting this!! what a cool idea

[u/GrownUpDisneyFamily → u/allaspiaggia]

Was unaware of this organization, thanks so much for the link, just found my local chapter and can't wait to learn more about it!

[u/allorache]

Love strapworks.com!!