PONG in the shadows

PONG in the Shade

Since summers are constantly getting hotter, shade is especially important on a PONG day. We often set up our Kiosk in open spaces where the sun burns relentlessly. So, we had to get some sun sails!

The first two sails were created in-house: the blue fabric with the dragon sailor and the yellow color splashes were a gift from a Messestädtlerin (thank you!!). Combined with old bedsheets and fabric scraps from our own stock, these first two sunshades came to life.

The stitching technique is inspired by East Asian patchwork – you can find beautiful examples under the terms Boro (Japan) or Jogakbo (Korea). This English article describes Korean Jogakbo quite accurately. In this tradition, light fabrics are stitched together by hand so that both the front and back sides are cleanly finished. When light shines through the textile, the stitches emerge as a graphic grid. This way of sewing arose from the necessity of making further use of fabric scraps.

We took a slightly easier route and used a machine to sew French seams. You can find a lovely English tutorial on how to replicate this here:

A small planning sketch helped with the initial assembly of the textile fragments. We sewed a large (almost) square piece of about 3.5 x 3.5 m and cut it diagonally. Triangles are easier to stretch out than a floppy quadrilateral – and just like that, two sails were ready.

The edge is reinforced with 5 cm wide polyester webbing. To enable the attachment of the sails, we simply stitched cords into the corners and organized some used tarp poles from tent supplies.

Since the shade is still nowhere near enough, sewing sun sails has since become part of our open offering at Kiosk PONG.