Happy Birthday to the MakeIT Place!

On June 11, 2024, the Grand Opening of the MakeIT Place was held! A lot has happened in the last year and we’ve enjoyed watching our community learn and grow in so many ways.

Since we opened the MakeIT Place:

•159 library patrons have become certified users of one of the MakeIT Place areas

•MakeIT Place program attendance totals 1,082

•MakeIT Place users have made reservations for 1,701 hours of use

What’s in store for NEXT year?

Be sure to attend the MakeIT Place Birthday Open House on June 14 between 10 and 3 during Ignite the Arts Weekend here in Washington. You can create a quilted or paper bookmark on the sewing machines, cut out a flower on the Cricut, engrave a wooden bookmark on the Glowforge, do a drop-in recording in our recording studio, or watch demos on pottery, 3-D printing, and the memory lab.

In July, we’ll be purchasing an additional pottery wheel so that we’ll have a total of four wheels. We’ve found that often our pottery users like to “bring a friend” so having an even number of wheels will help facilitate that. In addition, users will find that the cost of our pottery classes will be decreasing, thanks to the generosity of the Washington Free Public Library Foundation. Our goal is to try to get as many people certified in wheel use as possible. After a user is certified, the only cost for pottery users is to purchase clay, glazing and firing ($2.50/lb of clay). We realize that the $50/class cost (which covers our instructor cost, clay and glaze) can be prohibitive for some so we hope this will allow for more users to participate.

The Memory Lab will be expanding equipment thanks to the grant from the Washington County Riverboat Foundation. While much of the equipment purchased with the grant will assist with the Washington Evening Journal project, this equipment, which will make scanning slides and film much more efficient, will also be available for certified Memory Lab users with the appropriate training. We look forward to beginning to upload the WEJ images to the FortePan Iowa site.

Be on the lookout for our MakeIT Place Improvements survey. We’d love to have continuing feedback from the community on what additional classes we can offer, as well as what other equipment could be added in the future. Tell us what YOU want to make!