EAST VILLAGE — Order a beer, sit at a sewing machine and learn to whip up a special bandana designed to protect against allergens and bacteria at an upcoming class at Jimmy's No. 43.
The March 26 “Drink and Sew” class at the East Seventh Street bar will teach basic sewing machine techniques while participants create a scough — a bandana outfitted with a germ-fighting filter.
“It’s very easy,” said instructor Alexa Nigro who also co-founded Scough, a Brooklyn-based company that sells bandana and scarf-sized versions of the niche accessory online.
“I teach 6-year-olds to sew, so adults, they pick it up."
A scough — a mashup of the words “scarf” and “cough” — looks like a normal scarf or bandana, she said, but contains a pocket for a filter made of activated carbon and silver ions, which keeps out air pollutants and kills bacteria.
Customers can wear the scarf normally but pull it over their mouths and noses when necessary, she added.
“It’s good for people who have allergies in the spring and who get sick on the subway or traveling on the airplane,” Nigro said.
The $30 class fee includes all the materials and equipment needed to make the bandana as well as a free drink. The classes, which have been held in bars in Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan since July, are usually low-key, Nigro said.
“It’s usually very tame. You have a drink and it’s more social,” she said.
Students don’t drink more than they can handle and the class moves slowly, Nigro explained. The fabric is also ironed beforehand and there is “limited pinning,” she added.
“I’ve been teaching for five-plus years, but [getting hurt is] not something that really happens. You have to really try to get hurt,” Nigro said.
Scough’s “Drink & Sew: Machine Sewing Basics” will run from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on March 26 at Jimmy’s No. 43 at 43 E. Seventh St. Click here for more information.
