How to Sew with your Children and Teenagers

Teaching your kids and teenagers to sew is an admirable achievement, yet instilling the confidence to use the skills they’ve learned to go off on their own and make something independently is a gift for life. Having taught children and teenagers to sew for almost a decade, I would love to share how to encourage and inspire even the most uninterested candidates. Before you know it, you will be sewing together in concentrated quiet or with the hum of sewing chatter to a background of your favorite tunes.

With Christmas around the corner, here are some simple and fun ideas for your children to make for themselves or as handmade gifts, as a heartfelt way of spreading love in taxing times.

Children

Handsewing is the number one go-to project for kids from age 7. Hand and finger puppets and soft toys are an easy way to develop fine motor skills, so these are a fun project to start with together.

Let their imaginations run wild and give them the freedom to sew what they want, be it a cow with wings or a fox with four eyes! Children get into their projects with a furious passion when you let them create their fantastical creatures as they envision as opposed to when they are reminded that Miss Mouse doesn’t actually have reindeer horns.

Next week, we will show you how to make Mr Curious Fox. You will need some scraps of fabric, poly-fill stuffing, thread, a needle, and embroidery thread.

Teenagers

Teenagers tend to desire perfection and realism in their projects. If their work doesn’t turn out neat or as they envisioned, they lose interest fast.

Zippered pouches are a great start. Teenagers can make a make-up bag, or a little pouch to keep their scrunchies, or toiletries to take on a road trip. In a couple of weeks time, we will be showing you how to make an all essential pencil case. So stay tuned.

In the meantime, you could show them some simple techniques on how to dye their linen naturally, with only what you have around the kitchen, be it tumeric or avacado skins. For best results, make sure to get the Ready To Dye Linen. If you have never tried natural dyeing yourself but would love to give it ago with your kids, you can download our Free Guide to Natural Dyeing written by Kathryn Davey.

Young adults and confident sewers

There is a plethora of wonderful first projects to start with more confident sewers. From Magda Pants, to Simple Linen tshirt, you are welcome to browse through the FS catalogue of Patterns to see what takes their fancy. All of the free patterns will have a corresponding Tutorial on how to make that particular garment. Simply type in the name of the pattern into search on the thread and it will take you to the right Tutorial. If you have any questions or quieries, don’t hesitate to comment below. And if you want to share your favorite project for whatever age kids you have around the house, please don’t hesitate to list it in the comments below.

Lauren Michelle