Sewing at the Google Garage with Bay Area Sewists

Hi, last weekend the Bay Area Sewists meetup group had a Sew Together meetup at the Google Garage – the volunteer-run maker space at the tech giant’s Mountain View location in Silicon Valley. I’m the organizer for the meetup group and Ali, one of our members who works at Google, graciously reserved the space, making it possible for us to meet there. Thank you, Ali!

Here are some of the photos I took from that visit, along with one photo taken by Marilyn, another Bay Area Sewists member, which I’ll identify.

This is some of the fun stuff on the wall just outside the Google Garage – car parts that have been painted in Google colors. You can sort of see that Google is spelled out. The first “G” is made from tires and the two O’s from hub caps.

The Google Garage has high ceilings and has plenty of tables to work. Not surprisingly, there are many computer monitors and a few 3-D printers. We made use of all the tables.

In addition to the tables with the wood tops, there were taller white tables – in the foreground of the photo below. These tables had stools for sitting.

In the back of the space is this area with a few sewing machines and sergers. There were also many other sewing machines in a locked cabinet. The Google artwork on this wall is actually a photo of tools spelling out Google.

Here’s a spray-painted sign inside the maker space. As you might be able to tell, it’s the hood of a car.

I brought a couple of things to work on at the Google Garage – fitting the back of my Flint pants (they were a little baggy in the back) and cutting an A-line skirt from a pattern I drafted when I made the lining for this skirt. I shared this table with Shontai, who was cutting out a PDF pattern.

We were also fortunate to have several giveaways from Fabrix in San Francisco, courtesy of Bay Area Sewists member Annetta who works at Fabrix. She brought many two-yard cuts for us, which you can see in the photo below. Here she is telling us about the store, which carries discounted designer fabrics. She says you’ll find a lot of stuff priced at $2.89 or $3.99 a yard – and there’s even a $0.99 table.

I have not been to this store yet, mostly because it’s a long trip via public transportation. Now I really want to check it out. At those prices, you could get quite a lot of fabric for $20.

Towards the end of our Google Garage meetup, we had a raffle and four winners got to have first pick of the fabrics, with the first winner choosing four fabrics, the next three, and then two and then one. Annetta also had various coupons for yardage and notions at Fabrics.

Ali won first pick. Here she is choosing her fabrics. After the winners made their picks, all the other fabrics were up for grabs. See the fabric with the circle design? I got that quilt-weight fabric. I think it could be a fun summer skirt.

Here’s a close up of some of the fabrics.

These are all trims and collars from Annetta’s collection, which she got at Fabrix. She brought them to show the range of trims there.

Here’s the photo Marilyn took of me introducing Annetta. I’m in the center of the photo in front of the wood wall. To the right of the wood wall is the entrance to the sewing area with machines and sergers.

And here’s the group photo. We had a great time at the Google Garage!

If you live in the Bay Area and would like to join the group, visit the meetup page here to see past and upcoming monthly meetups.  We have fabric and pattern swaps as well as fitting meetups. It’s free to join for the first 90 days. We typically meet in Berkeley, San Francisco, and occasionally in the South Bay.

Do you participate in any sewing meetups? What do you usually do at your meetups?