Now that we had to implement our previous plan of making eco bags, I found a local market that sold recycled fabric. I soon ordered the fabric, and crated full scale outlines so that the members could cut the fabric in the shapes. I also prepared instructions for the members to follow, since they wouldn't know what they were doing.
When the session began, I decided to split the group into two groups: one would do the cutting and sewing, while the other did the plastic fusing to create the hard inner material for the tote bags. I was in the plastic fusing group, as in the pictures below. I first fused the plastic and cut them into good sizes to insert them into the bags.
However, as time passed, I discovered that this plan wasn’t a good idea as I previously imagined. The fabric was hard to cut, sewing was much harder than I thought, and there were even some members who did not know how to sew. The process even took much longer than I thought. The initial plan, obviously, would be very beautiful if we could finish making them. Also, they were very meaningful since they required lots of plastic bags to make one. But the problem was with efficiency, as each bag would take almost two weeks to complete. As students that were, at best, doing sewing as their hobby, we thought it would be extremely hard to produce enough bags to sell and gather funds. If we had enough time and money, this would be very worth doing. However, seeing this blatant inefficiency, I thought that I had to change what we were trying to do.
However, at the same time, I learnt new things from this failure: it is just essential that a leader first tries something before implementing it. Simulating something in one’s head is extremely different from actually implementing it. I learnt the importance of actual experience and reflecting upon such experiences.
Comments