I Tried to Make an African Book Cover!


 

I participated in a sewing class with interest the other day.

It was a class to make a book cover. The class was held in an evening during the week in Tokyo.

The instructor was Ms. Umeda, a Japanese woman, who runs a business of selling African sundry goods in Tokyo.

Specifically, she purchases materials from Africa to make clothes, bags, and so forth and she sells them. She is a woman who works with enthusiasm.

There were about 30 people, but I was the only man in the class. I felt timid, but tried not to care and concentrated on the project.

 

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A cloth and a needle were provided.
The cloth has an African taste to it.

 

 

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The Instruction how to make it is described in the paper.
The teacher instructed us while taking a look at the instruction.

 

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First, fold down the side firmly.

 

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Then I sewed the side.
The stitch got rough since I am terrible with sewing. LoL

 

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The hardest part was to thread a needle. I was struggling with it for quite a while.
So the teacher handed me a threader.
This is very practical! (I wished she had handed it to me earlier. w)
“Made in Japan” was molded on its backside.

 

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I was terrible doing this first, but as I did it more, I got better (?).

 

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It looks kind of good.

 

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It took me about 30 minutes to finish it.

 

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It looks like this from outside.

 

*

 

Well, it has been the first time I did sewing since I was in an elementary school. Moreover, I was the only guy in the class. Being surrounded by women in the class made me nervous and being nervous made me sweat. LoL

We returned an questionnaire about the sewing class in the end. I requested to get more men to participate in the class next time?

Ms. Umeda, the teacher, sells unique products related to Africa as I mentioned above, so let me introduce about her website here. (The website is in Japanese.)

Since her business style is hard to emulate, I think it is a great business model.

 

Umeda Yo-hin-ten (African print, Handmade, Fair trade, Fine art)

 

 

This is JAPAN Style!

 

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