Sew of Silence

5 GoodGymers made their way 8.0km to help the Ealing Repair Cafe in Ealing.

: Tuesday, 4th of June 2024
: Led by Kash

The run from Ealing Broadway to the office of Action West London in Acton takes 4km each way. Tonight was not one of our easy-going group run evenings as we really wanted to make it on time. Mary, Yvonne and Lone - all the big names of Ealing Repair Cafe - prepared a special workshop for GoodGym Ealing! It was a follow-up of our previous collab with Mary. We really wanted to finish the upcycled GoodGym flag and give more GoodGymers the opportunity to learn how to sew and create more bunting for Acton Market.

How much bunting does Acton Market, Acton Carnival and community groups need?

"My friend says: there is never enough... But my cousin says: burn it all!" - Mary

We took Mary's friend's perspective and created four strings of bunting out of old jeans! Steph and Sevan cut the fabric into triangles, and Divya operated the sewing machine.

In the meantime, Paul and Kash took up the challenge to sew the GoodGym logo to the flag's background.

"How confident you guys are with hand sewing?"
"I had it in school." - Paul

Indeed, Paul's and Kash's sewing was supposed to be all manual and needed some coordination between the duo to not hurt the quality of the flag (and not hurt each other).

"You can remove the pins once you have sewn the letter. That way, you have less stabbing potential" - tip from Mary

Everyone worked with utmost concentration.

"I have never been on a task that's been so quiet." - Paul

That said, we've been bursting into laughter on several occasions, especially after hearing the pro tip about regularly stroking the thread to avoid knots. I wonder why!

Before running back to Ealing, we popped into ActOne Cinema. To watch a film? No. To use their community space? No. We chose the cinema's bar as a place to chat without noise and celebrate...