My sister was back in town, and we enjoyed the perfume workshop we did together last year, so she found this Gin Lee Make workshop for us to make another thing together.
The make studio is located within a Gin Lee store in Great World City (a mall), so it was super convenient to get to, and a lovely space surrounded with many colourful pleated pieces.
We were going to make a pleated mid-sized sling bag, and there were several choices we had on the colour of the bag, straps, wraps, and pleat design.
I was quite excited to get to try to make pleats, after having watched some fascinating videos of pleat-making previously.
This is us in front of the steamer, with our bags folded into the pleat pattern paper. The steamer goes up to 100 degrees celsius to help set the pleats
Here's the little corner for us to work on shaping the wraps at the ends of the straps while waiting for the pleats to set
And some cleaning up of the ends
The most exciting part was definitely unwrapping the pleated pattern to reveal the pleated bag:
We coincidentally chose the same pleat pattern ("Gate"), but there are two other different pleats you can choose from
Very happy with our new bags! (This photo below is taken at the changing room corner of the store where we sat and waited for a bit when the pleats were getting steamed - such a lovely green space)
Such innovative packaging too - the straps on top of the box are the straps from our actual sling bag
Details of the workshop
Duration: about 1 hour
Price: SGD 65 for the mid-sized sling bag, booked on the Gin Lee Make website
Level of "fun": 3.5/5
I think the most fun part was the pleating (which was obviously the highlight of the making process) - it's reminds me of origami (although the pleated pattern paper was already folded), and it's just amazing to see the shape transform from a flat cloth to pleated one in the process.
The other steps were pretty basic and easy to follow. This was overall a very straightforward and easily enjoyable quick workshop in a conveniently located setting, with a beautiful product to bring home at the end of it
Level of difficulty: 1/5
This was a super easy workshop, very friendly for crafting beginners as the steps were simple, and in case you get stuck (my strap was literally stuck for a bit, because it was hard to "thread" the strap into the side loop of the bag after steaming), the staff will have ways to help you (they used this tool to help me pull the stuck strap through the loop).