The Innovate & Make Space (I&MS) at Lamar Community College continues to grow and expand, this time with the addition of industrial sewing machinery.
Other the summer, the I&MS expanded into the darkroom that was once used for LCC’s photography classes. Equipment was moved out of the space, sinks and exhaust hoods uninstalled, walls painted, and electricity reconfigured to convert the space into a usable sewing room.
The space has since been augmented with a large sewing table with plenty of room to plan and execute projects, as well as two new pieces of industrial sewing equipment: a serger (Overlock) machine and sewing machine.
In August, I&MS manager Laura Misenheimer and volunteer Lori Peterson traveled to Ralph’s Industrial Sewing Machine Company in Denver to pick up the machines and receive training.
While there, they were able to visit the Denver Design Incubator (DDI) right next door for some additional training and maker space inspiration. The DDI is essentially a shared maker space and resource center specifically geared to people who want to develop commercial apparel or accessory collections.
“It is a spectacular place!” Misenheimer said of the Incubator. “Both Lori and I were quite taken with DDI and wish that we could have spent all day creating in that space. I can only hope that our sewing room will be as neat as this place is!”
Lisa Ramfjord Elstun is the CEO/Founder of the Fashion Design Center in Denver as well as the cofounder of DDI. She was one of the trainers that the I&MS staff met with and she will be coming to visit the LCC Innovate & Make Space in the near future to give staff and volunteers another sewing lesson.
Anyone interested in learning more about the sewing room expansion to the LCC Innovate & Make Space should contact Laura Misenheimer at 719.336.1584 or laura.misenheimer@lamarcc.edu.
Alternatively, the public is invited to stop in and check out all that is going on in the local maker space on Mondays-Wednesdays from 8:00am to 12:00pm and Thursdays 4:00 to 8:00pm.