Today we are asking for your ideas and expertise: What are great projects to sew with kids or teens who are stuck at home? Let’s bring the newest generation into our #sewstayhome community!
Here are a few ideas to get us started :
- As a child, I remember the great delight of getting to choose fabric for clothing for myself, then sitting on my mom’s lap and “helping” while she sewed.
- When I was a bit older, I enjoyed working with cross stitch kits and making my own basic garments like pyjamas pants or skirts.
- As an elementary teacher, I’ve had great luck teaching my classes to embroider on felt and making bean bags as a simple first project.
- Anyone else remember that point in time when learning from your mom made you the brattiest teen possible? If I had a teen, I’d consider something like Sew It Academy by Mimi G, BluPrint or Youtube tutorials to avoid shouts of “Mom, stop hovering over my shoulder!”
Please share your ideas and help each other make plans in the comments!
Gillian is co-founder of the Sewcialists. She teaches ESL in Canada and lives with her cats, husband and giant fabric collection!
One of the first things I “sewed” was a little quilt for my dolly. My mom gave me a rectangle of fabric with fusible interfacing on it and a bunch of scraps and I spent a looooong time arranging the scraps just perfectly to get the pattern I wanted. Then she ironed it together and ran some lines of stitching across it to “quilt” it. I used it for years, and I can’t wait to make something similar with my little guy!
That is so clever!!!!
Palmer Pletsch have made their hand sewing PDF book for kids free, I’ve downloaded it and it looks adorable and really easy to follow along.
Now to get the energy and focus together to carry out the activity with the kids!
That’s awesome! Thanks!
We’ve had good luck making felt stuffed animals, and Purl Soho has some really cute free patterns for a felt alphabet and number set, and some other easy felt projects. We also really like drawing crazy monsters and dinosaurs on muslin, and embroidering them with all kinds of stitches and thread colors. Using big needles is very helpful for tiny hands!
Sewing on felt is so satisfying, even as an adult!
I am a terribly bad example. I learned to sew as a preteen
My first project: plaid overalls (Second project: corduroy jumper) I got lots of instruction and guidance but they made me do the work-including plaid matching and nap layouts.
Baptism of fire for someone who wasn’t allowed to touch the machine before that…
My daughter started with dolls …of her own design…with sharpie faces
We tried a simple 4 patch quilt for the dolls but that didn’t go over well…
Next project and first garment project as a young teenager: bralettes…which isn’t as crazy as it sounds…It’s a lot of straight line sewing
Both a little out of the box but worth considering and let’s face it-precision cutting is a really good thing basic to learn
How fantastic! I have to say I was more fearless as a teen – the last thing I had cut out was a chiffon sari overlay pencil dress, which honestly I wouldn’t attempt now!
When my son was a preschooler I worked with him to design his own projects and sew them. He wanted to make a jet pack for his dragon stuffie. I had him draw a picture of what he thought that would look like, and showed him how to turn the shapes in the drawing into pattern pieces, and then he chose scraps, cut out the pieces, hand sewed them together, and stuffed it. His elementary school had a club for sewing “dolls and monsters” and he participated in that.
My daughter insisted on using the machine when she was maybe five? and went on to making doll dresses for a kids’ craft fair when she was ten or so? (that was a disappointing event and she didn’t do it again, but she made really nice doll clothes). She got better than me almost immediately, and went on to work her way through college in the costume shop of her university’s theater.
My son was able to sew on his buttons and fix the tears in his clothes when he went away for school (he could also shop and cook, which apparently a lot of other med students couldn’t?)