A Great Beginning Project

A question I hear often: “I’m going to teach my child how to sew. Can you suggest a project?”

What’s a good project for beginners?

There are many great first projects. Simple straight lines, and after learning to pivot, right angles can be added. In my sewing classes and camps, we start with drawstring bags, and other rectangular projects. This is another  great project, which is more open-ended and creative for my beginning students to do. This is a great one when you don’t have time to do en entire project. If a student finishes early, this is an activity she can do while others finish, as well.

My students love this activity. It  allows them to express their creative style and practice their sewing skills at the same time. The other thing I notice is they can be chatty and giggle more while working on this project. Definitely a good thing. Sewing should be fun. Things tend to be much more quiet when we are working on a project that is more involved. I think it’s important to have both types of learning environments.

I’ve heard of fabric cards, but had not actually made one or even been interested enough in them to google search the project. It never even occurred to me to offer this, until a sewing class, when a student was patiently waiting for the rest of the group to make their samples. She had already finished and stapled her sample into her seam book. She went and gathered a bunch of the sample fabric scraps, and was arranging them on her cover page–much like a collage. As I came over, she invited me to look at what she was making. She was planning to stitch them in place to decorate her front page and make it her own. I love it! It was very quilty and fun  🙂 But more important, she was creating and designing.

Perfect activity for young sewists!

I already have them practice sewing different shapes on paper. And I have them practice sewing straight, pivots, and curves on scrap fabric. Why not marry the two, add sewing fabric onto paper to the choices offered during class? So now, I bring card stock and a basket of small scraps. It’s important to offer open ended projects for kids, but in sewing that’s not always possibe, especially when you are trying to teach them basic skills.

It’s also a great reason to pull out all those scraps I’ve ironed, sorted, and saved.

As I invite the students to explore the fabric scraps, I encourage the kids to cut their own shapes. I explain is okay to free hand or use a fabric marker to draw shapes to  cut out. I also show them how to use everyday objects to help make the cutting lines for different shapes. This part of the activity gives them lots of practice cutting out and improving on that skill–which is a really important skill that takes time to develop.

After cutting and designing, the kids used a little wonder tape to hold the shapes in place, while they sew the shapes down. The students chose how to sew each shape down: matching thread or contrasting, zigzag or straight stitching, and sewing around or “X” through the middle.

Bring Examples to Show Students

It’s important to always have a finished example for the project you are teaching. Students need to know where they are going with all these sewing steps, before they get there.

Here are some examples I made to share with the students, though I didn’t want to have too many. That may prevent them from coming up with their own ideas. I want to give them just a little inspiration to get them going.

I also try not to be perfect in my examples. I want the kids to see that I mean what I say when I say no one’s sewing is perfect. Art is not a perfect science and perfection can sometimes  hinder creativity. We are learning the process and not learning to manufacture a product.

Here is one student made project. I thought it was clever that she started cutting out pictures

Tutorial Time!

Here’s how I made the raggedy style stripe one:

Cut the card stock to the size you want. Note the bigger it is, the more you swill need to bend it to fit under your machine and sew it.

Sew narrow strips of fabric onto the card. I sewed mine on a diagonal and my stitching lines are about 1/2″ to 3/4″apart.

Turn it over and trim extra fabric.

Using small, sharp scissors, cut in between stitching lines. (I found this to be the trickiest part for young students, but it does strengthen their cutting skills)

Use your fingers or a straight pin to pull out some threads to make it fray a bit. This makes part of the card stock show through the strips and gives it a arts and craft feel.

The more we do something, the more we improve. Pretty simple. But sometimes kids gets bored doing the same thing over and over. They seem to like this quick activity, and I love that it has no right or wrong aspect to it, allowing them the freedom to learn without the fear of being wrong or being judged. I think we all love that. Through this activity, we’re all inspiring one another and supporting each others individual creativity   ♥

What are some questions you have about teaching kids to sew? I would love to hear from you!  Send me an email: Erin@AveryLaneSewing.com