Seditious pockets (part 1) with our friends Lovelace Space

A hand holds open a pocket in the seam of a garment

In conjunction with our friends at Lovelace Space, we want to help you add pockets where you want and need them. Everyone loves a pocket, you can fill it with goodies or surprises, or maybe some pamphlets… but not all clothing comes with pockets off the rack. Or maybe it does come with pockets but you want MORE!

On October 14th, from 7pm to 9pm, we’re hosting a workshop on adding in-seam pockets and patch pockets to existing items of clothing. You do not need to have sewing experience to join, you just have to want more pockets. Hosts Tríona and Maria will help you add pockets using both handsewing and machine sewing techniques (and a little bit of ironing for some). Bring a laundered item of clothing and your imagination. We’ll provide materials and guidance. We will have some sewing machines in the space but you’re more than welcome to bring your own.

And, as it’s Climate Action Week, we are conscious that helping you repair clothes is good for the planet AND we’ll be making sure to reuse materials for your shiny new pockets by sourcing them from our friends at Change Clothes.

A pair of jeans with its pocket turned out to reveal colourful fabric. The pocket enlarges the original jeans pocket.
A pair of jeans with its pocket turned out to reveal colourful fabric. The pocket enlarges the original jeans pocket.

A patch pocket is a pocket that’s added to the surface. You can add it anywhere, and it can be (almost) any shape. First you make the edges of the pocket neat and then you’ll attach it.

A grey patch pocket attached to the inside of a grey coat. A battery pack and wire are poking out of the pocket.
A grey patch pocket attached to the inside of a grey coat. A battery pack and wire are poking out of the pocket.

An in-seam pocket goes in a seam (it’s in the name). You’ll cut your pocket pieces, gently rip open some of the seam, and then attach the pocket pieces and sew it up while reenforcing the seams near the pocket.

The class costs €5 and tickets can be found here.

https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/seditious-pockets-tickets-2002719183991?aff=oddtdtcreator

The cost will cover materials and a small donation towards Tog’s running costs. See you there!

Find out more about Lovelace Space at their website: lovelacespace.com

Embroidery machine workshop – monograms

Three towels with the word Tog embroidered in various fonts

The first in a series of workshops with our new embroidery machine will be about learning the lettering tool in Ink/Stitch to make monograms.

A monogram is a short one to three letter embellishment. You’ll find them on towels, napkins, fancy dressing gowns and so on. They can be a person or company’s initials, though for Tog we figured we’d just put all three letters on.

At the workshop, you’ll learn how ink/stitch’s Lettering Tool works and create your own monogram. You’ll learn how to set up a basting box around a design in case it’s needed. Then you’ll learn how to hoop up items like towels and napkins, align your pattern, and then stitch out your monogram! All embroidery supplies will be provided along with a towel each.

A close up of the embroidery machine adding a pink letter T to a towel.

For the workshop, bring your laptop with inkscape already installed and think about which one to three letters you want to embroider. Towels will be provided, but if you want to bring additional items like a napkin or handkerchief, we can see if there’s time after the class to embroider those with your design.

A finished monogram in the hoop. IT's a grey towel with Tog in orange and yellow letters in a purple circle.

The class costs €15 for non-Tog members and €10 for members. Book your ticket here. Keep an eye on the events page or our meetup.com page to be notified of future workshops (there will be many!).

Sunday 27th September 1530-1730

New toy! An industrial embroidery machine!

A tog member stands in front of the embroidery machine, showing off a piece of embroidery in a hoop

If you’ve been in the space recently, you might have see our newest toy tool, a 12 colour, industrial, embroidery machine! Many of our members are very excited about it, so we started showing members how to use it and will be opening it up to a wider audience in the coming weeks with workshops on how to design for embroidery machines.

The machine is a secondhand ZSK Sprint 5, made in Germany in 2012. It’s passed through a few hands before coming to us, but it’s in great condition, and we’re going to get many years of use out of it yet! It’s able to embroider areas up to 30 by 30 cm and can automatically change colours and cut the threads. We also have a cap attachment for it, but let’s start with flatter surfaces first.

A grey hoop with grey fabric mounted in it. the numbers 1 to 12 are stitched out in different colours. Apart from 8 which appears to be mangled.

As it’s a 90 kg beast, one of our members built a table to handle the weight. We’ve put the machine in the small room with the laser cutter as it’s quite noisy, but it tends to move a lot, so we couldn’t put it upstairs by the 3D printers or they’d be very sad.

A metal legged table with a box top made from OSB and a nice bit of ply

Of course, as a hackerspace, we’re not out buying the manufacturer’s closed software but we are delighted to be able to use a variety of open source software with it. The machine takes .dst files, which are an industry standard supported by many open source tools. The main workhorse software is Inkscape with the plugin Ink/Stitch. It has a bit of a learning curve, but it’s extremely flexible. There’s also the option to use PEmbroider with Processing, and we can’t forget TurtleStitch for those interested in machine embroidery as an educational tool as well as for art. Expect some design workshops to pop up over the coming months!

If you simply want to gaze at its majesty, drop in on any of our open evenings. On craft night, you’re most likely to find the machine embroidery nerds, so pack a craft project and stick around after getting to know our newest toy and its biggest fans.

An early test embroider. The white fabric is still mounted in the hoop. It has a black duck with the text tog.ie in green. Below that is testing testing one two

Open Fashion Show at Dublin Maker

A colourful graphic of people wearing various coats and bags, just standing around

At Dublin Maker our craft night regulars will be running an Open Fashion Show and we want YOU to take part! Whether you’ve crafted an elaborate outfit or made a cute patch on your jeans, anything at all, we want to see it!

Making, repairing and upcycling clothes and accessories is just so awesome, and people are always delighted when they found out (“you made that!?! cool!”), so let’s have a bunch of you together for that concentrated pride in our work! Expect to see everything from knitted shawls to elaborate fursuits, patched shirts and handsewn bucket hats.

On the day, we’ll ask you to fill out a card with some information about your make. Then we’ll give all the cards to our emcee and he’ll call you up, one by one, and you’ll do a little loop to show off your stuff and get a round of applause. Simple!

If you’re not ready to strut your stuff, come along anyway. Give a big clap to our makers and get inspired for next year!

There will be four slots, Saturday 12:45 and 14:45, and Sunday 11:15 and 14:30. You may sign up for whichever ones work best for you. If you’re entering the show, turn up a few minutes earlier to fill out your card.

If you’re almost but not quite ready with something to show off, drop by Craft Night on August 9th from 18:30-20:30 at Tog for some moral support (and advice if you need it).

In case you have any questions, feel free to email triona@tog.ie for more details.

The event will be accessible to people with limited mobility but if you have an extra questions, you can also check the Dublin Maker guide or reach out on their contact page.

We can’t wait to see you there!

For an easy link to share with friends visit tog.ie/fashion and you’ll find a post there if you want to print one.

You can sign up for a slot in advance with eventbrite at: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/open-fashion-show-dublin-maker-tickets-1996822790720

Don’t worry if you haven’t finalised your make, you can change your mind on the day and fill out a fresh card.

Repair Club: Buttons & Patches Edition

Our new Repair Club series is back, and this time we are turning our attention to clothes.

After taking a look at lamp repair in our first session, the next Repair Club will focus on buttons, patches, and simple textile repairs. It is a practical evening for anyone who would like to make their clothes last a little longer, learn a useful skill, or finally tackle that missing button that has been sitting in a drawer for months.

Repair Club is a little different from a Repair Café. Rather than bringing along a whole range of broken things to be fixed, we take a deeper dive into one type of repair and learn about it together.

For this session, we will be getting hands-on with simple repairs for woven fabrics. We will practise sewing buttons back on by hand, adding patches by hand, and looking at when a machine-sewn patch might make more sense. We will also talk about visible versus invisible mending, and how a small repair can help keep a favourite item in use for years to come.

The focus will be on items such as shirts, trousers, jackets, cushions, toys, bags, and similar things. Stretchy fabrics such as socks and T-shirts are a different challenge, so they will have to wait for another day.

Please bring along one or two clean items that need a button replaced or a small hole patched. This will be a friendly, beginner-focused session, so no sewing experience is needed. If you are not sure whether your item is suitable, get in touch with us before the event.

The session will be led by TOG member Tríona.

Event Details

Date: Wednesday, 22 July 2026
Time: 7:30 pm–9:00 pm
Location: TOG Hackerspace
Cost: €7.50, with ticket income going as a donation to TOG

Book your place on Eventbrite

Come along, learn a few useful skills, and give a favourite item a better chance of staying out of the bin.

Craft Night is back

Starting Sunday, 31st May, Craft Night will return to Tog. From 6.30 pm to 8.30 pm every second Sunday, drop by and join in, whether you make the yarn itself (we love spinners!) or noodle about with e-textiles and blinky quilts.

If you haven’t been to Craft Night before, it’s mainly people working on portable crafts like yarn-based and textile projects, but feel free to bring your current WIP (Work In Progress). We’ll take over the common area with crafting and conversation.

We might even try to bring a group Craft Night project to Dublin Maker (it’s been a while!).

You’ll find the nights on our calendar, so you don’t need to remember which every other Sunday it is. Newcomers to Tog are more than welcome to join us.

See you there!