Great Projects to Begin Sewing with Kids

Sewing with children can seem like a challenging project but it's actually quite rewarding. And if you take the time to do it, you're passing on an important skill to another generation. Now, when you're deciding to sew with children, you really need to take into account the specific child you want to work with, and when it's best to start sewing with them. You can get things like little handiwork things for younger children before you move on to the machine. But in general, you want to work with a child that's okay with sitting still for 15 to 20 minutes and working with you on the sewing machine. It's also important to take into consideration, you know, the attention span. So if it's 15 to 20 minutes and that's it, that's fine. Take a break, go away. I also really like to prep everything in advance. So I do all the cutting beforehand, all the pressing beforehand, so that when we're ready to sew together, we can just both sit down at the machine and start stitching. And so that's a really good way to get started because then there's none of that, you know, cause 90% of sewing is preparation, right. And so they don't have to worry about all the, all the un-fun parts. And besides irons are very hot and little fingers can get burnt easily. I know I burnt mine quite a bit when I was first learning. So speaking of safety precautions, you really want to take those into consideration. So only work with an iron when you're comfortable being, working with an iron with the child. Older children are probably fine, but teach them, you know, this is when the iron is hot. Look for the lights, make sure it's unplugged. When it comes to cutting implements, always start with scissors before you move to rotary cutting systems just because rotary cutters are very, very sharp and you need to take extra precautions, demonstrate several times so that they understand exactly how it cuts and where the sharp blade is. In addition to that, you want to make sure that safety wise, there's nothing going on outside of this, what you're doing. So try to get into a nice concentrated place where they're paying attention and you're paying attention to everything you're doing as you work together to sew a fun project or whatever you might be working on. Now, let's talk about some projects that you can get started with. I like to prep, hand sewing first, especially with younger children. And I have sewn kids as young as, well I tried at one point a three-year-old who was very interested, but eventually she turned four and that's when we really got started sewing together. So I like to, you can get kind of kits that have a tapestry needle and yarn and a, like a cardboard cutout that has holes pre perforated in it. Or you can make your own, which is what I've done. So I just have two pieces of fleece here and you can see that I have, it might be easier. Nope, it's easier on the side. You can see that I've gone ahead and drawn a few dots on here to show where we should put some stitches. And then I've just knotted a contrasting color of thread, of course to get children excited about sewing, you might want to show them, let them pick out all the colors and materials. And then just show them this is how sewing works. You put it in at one dot t and you come up at the next dot, and they can learn this way. You know, there's no, there's right ways and wrong ways of doing things. But when you're first starting out, it's mostly about the action of doing it. So you want to show them, you know, do it your way, but this is how stitches form. And I really liked starting with hand sewing, especially on fleece or something along the, or felt as I have here, just because that's really easy to show them, you know, this is how sewing works. You're connecting two pieces of fabric with thread. You're making stitches and it's either you making the stitch or it's the sewing machine making the stitch. And I think this is a good way to get started to show them how to sew this. Now, what kind of projects can they sew? Well they could decorate the heart with thread. And then in the middle, you could even write out some words for them to stitch over. And that's a little Valentine they can give away or to put up on their wall. If you want to get started on the sewing machine, I recommend going online and just finding a coloring book maze. So I just searched for coloring book maze and I found this one, I believe on Pinterest. And it's good to have ones with big wide open lines. And this is a good way to kind of give kids a little bit of information about the safety of using a selling machine. So we're just going to sew the maze as though we were doing it with a crayon. And here we're using a needle to sew paper. So that means that this needle is no good anymore. We need to only so paper in the future with it, et cetera. So when you're starting out teaching a child how to sew on a sewing machine, you want to teach them the parts and where the needle is and what's moving. You should demonstrate first how the machine works so that they know what to expect when it's running. And it may work out best if you use the presser foot and they move the paper around to begin with. And then once they're comfortable with that, they can use the presser foot. You can also always just instruct them to only use the hand wheel to go through the maze, which is also fine. Cause you could just go to, go all the way through the maze using the hand wheel. It would take awhile, but you could certainly do it. So you would just sew around, and this is a good way to go because it teaches them about pivoting and what to do when you get to a point and you're ready to go a different direction, right. And you just kind of go through the maze and they can try to find the solution or they can try to find every possible route to go on the maze, right. It's really easy and quick, quick and simple. You can kind of show them when they're done. Okay, well, here's a spot where you pivoted really well and that looks good, but down here you started going a little crooked. And so you shouldn't, you know, here's how to work on that. And so this is a fun project just to introduce kids to the sewing machine is going through a maze together. I'm sure they'll love it. And you'll enjoy showing them how to use the sewing machine. After that, I recommend letting them pick out the materials because of course that's the most fun part and prepping everything beforehand so that they have a lot of patience when they come into sewing. Remember to watch for their attention level and to watch for your attention level. If you're no longer jazzed about what you're doing, if you're getting frustrated, you can guarantee that that the kid you're working with is also probably frustrated. So there you go. Those are my best tips for how to sew with children and when to get started. I hope you'll find the little one to teach soon.