PONG in the Shadow

PONG in the Shadow

As summers keep getting hotter, shade on a PONG day is especially important. We often stand with our Kiosk in open spaces where the sun blazes mercilessly. So sun sails were needed!

The first two sails were created in-house: the blue fabric with the dragon sailer and the yellow splotches were gifted to us by a Messestadt resident (Thanks!!). Combined with old bed sheets and fabric scraps from our own stock, the first two sun protectors were born.

The sewing technique is inspired by East Asian patchwork – under the terms Boro (Japan) or Jogakbo (Korea) you’ll find beautiful examples. This English article describes Korean Jogakbo quite precisely. In this method, lightweight fabrics are traditionally sewn by hand, so both the top and the back are neatly finished. When light shines through the textile, the stitches appear as a graphic grid. This way of sewing arose from the need to make better use of fabric scraps.

We made it a bit easier for ourselves and machine-stitched French seams (Eng.: French Seams). A nice English guide for copying it is here:

A small planning sketch helped with the first arrangement of the textile fragments. We sewed a large (almost) square piece about 3.5 x 3.5 m and cut it diagonally. Triangles are easier to tension than a wobbly quadrilateral – and so two sails were ready right away.

The edge is reinforced with a 5 cm wide polyester tape. To attach the sails, we simply sewed cords into the tips and organized used tarp poles from camping gear.

Since the shade still doesn’t quite suffice, sewing sun sails has now become part of our open workshop at the Kiosk.