Sewing is a very interesting and creative craft to take on for everyone including children. It can serve as an avenue for parents to bond with their children.
Different forms of sewing can be learned by children according to their ages until they get accustomed to the craft and decide to take up complex sewing projects.
The most important character to have while teaching kids to sew is “patience”, it is very important to be patient when teaching kids to sew when you are a skilled sewer.
Permit your kids to make mistakes, because mistakes are opportunities to learn from while giving them the opportunity to make mistakes. It is essential that you let them understand the proper sewing techniques.
Always remember that you have to make sure the learning process is fun and not just a boring experience for your children. Another important thing is to make your children the creators of their personal projects.
Listed below are some important rules and techniques that should be considered when teaching kids to sew:
Tips to Teach Your Kids to Sew
Age Should not be a Barrier
Most parents wait until their children are almost teenagers before teaching them to sew, but it is important to know that age should not be a major barrier, instead of age interest should be considered as the major factor to be considered when teaching kids to sew.
Once your child starts showing interest in sewing, you should permit the child to sew irrespective of their age.
Never doubt their abilities because of their age or size, encourage them to explore, and master the craft once they start showing interest in the craft.
Most sewing experts recommend waiting for your kids to be up to 6 years old before introducing them to the sewing machine. While waiting for them to be older enough you can teach them other sewing options such as the hand sewing option.
The major factor to look out for before teaching kids to use the sewing machine is hand-eye coordination, it is important to take this into consideration before teaching them to use the sewing machine.
It is important that you get them sewing machines that are specifically designed for kids.
Although you can allow them to use the regular sewing machine before getting them a sewing machine for kids, you should give them the safety talk before they start using the sewing machine, this will make them know and understand where to put their hands.
Another technique to use in teaching them how to use the machine is to allow them to work the pedal, while you control the fabric. This will make them feel part of the process while avoiding any form of injury, once they’ve perfected that then you can allow them to control the fabrics under strict monitoring.
Pick Thicker Threads for Hand Sewing
One of the greatest challenges of hand sewing is putting the end of the thread through the eye of a needle.
To get over this challenge, you can get your child embroidery needles and thicker threads. The size 3 embroidery thread will work best for the task.
Some thicker threads available are the thread used for hand quilting, this thread gets less tangled than the normal sewing thread.
Let them be the Creators
It is important to make your kids the creators of their crafts, let them pick the colors, fabric, patterns, and all aspects of the sewing project. This may seem odd at first, but it will ensure that the project is centered around the child.
Kids get motivated when they make their own decision. Although there can be exceptions to the rule, you can instruct them to use less complicated fabrics and patterns, so as not to flop on their first project and start feeling like failures.
Train Them That Speed is Not the Same as Quality
Teach the kids when sewing that slow and steady wins the race. This tip is not only applicable to machine sewing but also applies for hand sewing as well.
Allowing them to sew really fast can cause injury to their little hands and discourage them from learning the craft. It is important to tell them not to rush if the project takes the whole day, it’s fine.
Repetition
Let your child repeat the same pattern over and over again. When your child shows interest in a specific project allow them to sew it over and over. The repetition makes them comfortable with a specific pattern while also boosting their confidence.
While repeating the same pattern suggests that they add something different to the project. A simple project can go along way in teaching kids a wide variety of sewing skills that will be important in every new project they take up.
Draw Line on the Fabric
Every experienced sewer is aware of an imaginary line, that keeps the stitches away from the edge of the fabric, but the same thing cannot be said for kids.
This may be confusing for a child, instead of letting the kids follow an imaginary line you can draw out the line using the fabric pencil and tell the child to follow the line.
Change the Pattern Paper
An adult may find it easy to use the regular tissue paper to trace pattern, but this may be frustrating for kids. This is because of thin and flimsy nature of the regular tissue paper.
For kids, you can draw the pattern on cardboard, thick card stock paper.
Once you’ve drawn the pattern onto the cardboard you can then tell your kid to trace it onto the fabric, this will make it easier for them to cut out patterns properly.
Demonstrate the Act of Putting Patterns on Fabric
An adult will usually try out patterns on the fabric and cover as much fabric as possible while avoiding wastage. This is usually different for kids, they find it more fun cutting patterns from the middle and making it had to reuse the fabric.
Demonstrate how to lay out all pattern pieces so as to maximize the fabrics while encouraging them to do likewise. Let them know that more projects can be accomplished with fewer fabrics.
