I grew my own leather to dress an astronaut
or why I participated in the Space Suit Challenge
By now, if you know me or follow my articles, you know that I´m too curious (if that is possible). So when I saw on Instagram the Space Suit Challenge, I didn´t even think about it, just sign up!
The idea was to put the maker community to make a spacesuit and you were free to use any material and technique you wanted.
I was really into kombucha and learning about biomaterials with the LittlePinkMaker.
…and why not grow my own leather and dress up my astronaut in a sustainable leather suit?
And so it started!
I separated the glassware that I would need to grow my kombucha and I started to grow the scobys.
It took a while (around 2 months, if I remember correctly) for them to grow the way I wanted.
I bought a small kitchen dehydrator to dehydrate all the scobys and I knew they would end up a bit too thin, but I was planning on still being able to work with them.
I also knew that I didn´t have a lot of time so I couldn´t grow a human-size leather suit in the time frame I had, so I decided to do a small size one :)
As you can see in the picture above, the leather ended up with the dehydrator pattern and really thin, like paper-thin, which made a bit tricky to work with.
However, giving up as not an option, and I entered the competition to learn and explore the possibilities and not to win…
This was the final look. Of course, I´m not a designer and I don´t have a lot of hand skills, but I still think I did my best.
I decided to put a glass candle holder as a helmet to still work with the sustainability concept.
No, I didn´t win, but yes, I learned a lot and had so much fun!
