This past weekend we held a workshop in collaboration with our partners at the Hadley Public Library in Denver. Originally this workshop was planned to fit into other activities happening at the library in honor of Día de los Muertos, centered around remembering and celebrating our loved ones who have passed. The theme of celebrating and remembering is one that we explored a few ways this fall, which you can read more about here. We had to reschedule the workshop due to unforeseen circumstances but we were excited to still be able to host the workshop this month!
Activity Overview
This activity was inspired by projects that were shared at the Computer Clubhouse Conference this fall made by youth from Panama City as well as the artist Han Cao.
Participants were invited to bring an image of a loved one that had passed to print using sublimation paper, heat press transfer onto a quilt square, and embellish them using embroidery thread and/or soft circuit elements like LED’s.
Setting up
Prior to the workshop the two teen facilitators at Hadley worked together to imagine the best lay out for the workshop. They decided to arrange into a U-shape to allow for a central location to introduce the activity in the front of the room, encourage conversation between participants as they were working, as well as to allow for easy materials sharing between tables. We set up the heat presses in the corner and made sure they were pre-heated and ready to go!
Lay out of Hadley ideaLAB tables for our workshop.
Sublimation Printing and Heat Pressing
We were excited to explore sublimation printing through this workshop activity. Prior to the workshop, Jose, Daria and I (Ronni), visited the ideaLAB at the Montbello branch of the Denver Public Library to learn more about sublimation printing at a site where the activity was extremely popular. We learned about how to convert an Epson color jet printer into a sublimation printer, tips on the best fabric to use to press onto, and heat press options and settings. It was really fun to learn from other ideaLAB facilitators and brainstorm together how our workshop might be run.
During the workshop we invited participants to email or scan pictures of their loved ones and we used a photoshop template to size them properly and flip them horizontally to prepare for printing. Participants then used one of our two heat presses to transfer the image onto our pre-sized quilt squares.
Embellishing our quilt squares
The remainder of our workshop, around 90 minutes, was spent embellishing our quilt squares. Many workshop participants opted to use embroidery thread to highlight certain aspects of the image, fill in the white space around the picture, or add elements that reminded them of their loved one (flowers, music notes, sun rays). We also provided beads and sequins that could be sewn onto the quilt squares.
In addition to embroidery embellishments, we also had one of our tables dedicated to soft circuits with Jose ready to assist people in adding LED’s using Lilypad components to their square. We prepared a one pager that outlined simple circuits and included step by step instructions to using the lilypad batteries, sequin LED’s and conductive thread. None of our participants opted to add circuits to their quilt squares during the workshop but they all expressed interest in returning to the ideaLAB later that week to work with Jose on the circuitry. The projects below were made by our facilitation team as examples.
Following the workshop, all of our squares from the workshop were pinned together into one quilt to display in the ideaLAB. Drop in visitors at Hadley will also be encouraged to create a quilt square to add to the commemorative quilt while its on display for the next few weeks.
Reflections and Next Steps
During the workshop all of the participants agreed that the process of embroidering together felt very meditative and calming. This activity was definitely a change of pace from other workshops I’ve been a part of, fostering a more quiet and reflective atmosphere. Although this atmosphere felt fitting given the theme of remembrance, in the future I’d like to continue to explore what it might look like to scaffold celebrating our loved ones and our projects a bit more through sharing together or engaging in other forms of collaboration. I’m also looking forward to continuing to think about how we might motivate participants to dig into sewable circuits in a workshop setting and what engaging low-floor projects to get started might look like. Finally, our participants and partners at the library agree that sublimation printing is a really engaging and exciting technique and I’m looking forward to future R&D with this tool as a team.