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A touch of class…

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No, not that…

…my sewing club returns for a new start!

Last year, I gauged enthusiasm for a sewing club at my new school, and found staff and students alike were quite enthusiastic.  I eventually trialled it as a once-a-week lunch club, and it ran successfully for the rest of the year, numbers fluctuating from time to time, and eventually the die hard enthusiasts were turning up every day, even when I had to go elsewhere, getting their sewing out and cracking on.  Very nice!

At first, time, space and cash restrictions [none of any] made me decide to stick to very basic hand sewing skills, so I took in a few yards of cheap curtain lining fabric and showed them how to make sure they didn’t cut their thread too long, how waxing it makes it easier to sew, how to enjoy the thrills of my desk top needle threader, and how to make cute little drawstring bags.

the ones who stuck round til the end also learned how to do a lovely neat hem, they were VERY pleased with themselves.  Some made several bags, and they were soon all teaching newcomers how to get going.  We even insisted on french seams throughout.

I have no pics unfortunately, they whisked the bags away as soon as they were done, and we are heavily discouraged from taking pics of kids on our own devices of course!

Towards the end of the school year we discussed what the new project should be, and having been given two old machines by the lovely Material Lady, and having 2 unwanted ones myself, we can progress to ‘real’ sewing.

I decided that very simple drawstring or elasticated trousers would be the way to go, as they already have the basic knowledge from assembling their little bags.

I ambushed the head and he is giving me a small budget for fabrics and habby, as well as a photocopying budget so eventually we can go with some PDFs for the kids to assemble for themselves.

For starters, I want to quickly show them how to follow a simple commercial pattern AND a simple online free PDF tutorial, so I found the latter on Martha Stewart’s site

then I went to hunt out trouser patterns online and found these two, both multi-sized [obviously very important for use in school!]

Simplicity 2290:

..and for those who want more of a challenge for project #2, Simplicity 8390 which I think looks very interesting!

Off I scampered to the rag market, having asked some of the kids what colour fabrics I should get.  Most just said ‘bright’ some specified shades, so for economy’s sake I opted for miles of poly-cotton sheeting from the Rag Market.  Red, green, blue and yellow, 100″ wide.  I got 2m of each at £3/m.  Then inside the markets I saw these lurid orange and pink beasts, not as wide, but only £2/m.  Another 2m of each then.  So 12 metres of fabric, some more-or-less matching cheap thread, a large roll of elastic from eBay and we look good to go.  I should be able to get at least a dozen pairs of trousers out of that lot, some might even be brave enough to try some simple piecing for rainbow trousers!

The first session will just be talking about the fabric grain, maybe a brief demo of different types of fabrics, then we can start prepping the pattern pieces.  Bugger tracing, I don’t want them bored to tears by slow progress, we’ll be doing this Fairy style. They can learn to be fussy once they’ve had some simple successes.  I remember too well being put off by school sewing classes where one garment took a whole year to complete!

They can also assemble the Martha Stewart patterns which I’ve had printed out three times so all three sizes can be cut separately.

Should be fun!

17 thoughts on “A touch of class…”

  1. What a lot of fun everyone will have? Wish I could be there to join in & help out.
    Good luck to the kids & adults it’ll be a grand time for all.

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    1. mostly kids I think for now- staff can rarely spare much time at lunch, but we have hopes of doing a grown up version after school at some point…my me-made wardrobe attracts a lot of attention lol

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  2. What great fun! There is a sewing club at my DD3’s high school, but she’s too busy with other activities to join.

    Your post got me thinking (again) of how I’m going to teach two young women to make skirts this fall, at their request. I’d like to teach them how to use a commercial pattern first, as it’s how I best know to sew, but I’m wondering if having them make their own personal slopers might be the better way…. as always, I’m tripping myself up with a desire for “perfect” garments.

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    1. I would look at ‘Fabrickated”s blog. She’s stopped posting now, but quite recently she helped a young neighbour to learn to sew a simple skirt, just pleating it onto a waistband if I remember rightly. I would be careful about being too technical or time consuming at first, aiming at perfection can be so daunting, I’m going for fairly fast, simple results, but always explaining to them how they will get better on the next go. My first makes were shoddy but I wore them very proudly, some for several years…and I learned everything from commercial patterns.

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  3. Hope you had a good summer. I think it’s great the way you put so much time and effort into this on top of your day job, as it were. The kids must love you for it – and rightly so!

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    1. Life skills- so many of the things we took for granted are missing from modern education due to the pressure of producing academic grades…and budget cuts mean lots of schools have let all aspects of technology go completely. One of the girls who learned to sew over the last few months with me, came to proudly show me the repair she’d just done on her blazer pocket. She sai
      d ‘it’s not very neat, but it’s doing the job, and I’ll get neater in time like you said’. I was very pleased!

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  5. I find it fascinating that academic achievement is what drives education when practical technical skills are so important. We may all have an abundance of book learning but who’s going to fix the plumbing. As someone who went to a very academic school I am eternally grateful to my parents for teaching me to sew. They didn’t do such a great job with things kitchen related!
    Relatively quick but well explained sounds like a great approach as we generally learn so much more from doing. Those’ll be some very snazzy pyjamas. Enjoy.

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    1. Well done for drumming up the enthusiasm and for giving up your time. I agree that sewing should be fun especially initially to get interest going, they can modify things and increase skills as experience increases.

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