Sewing Lessons with Design Your Wardrobe
Teaching kids sewing is such a tricky subject. How do you teach sewing at an impressionable, malleable, and sometimes fragile age in a way that will support their independence of person, not bore them to death, and not be too complicated, all while navigating the odd sizing realm of tween? While there are a few tween/teen sewing patterns out there, I've found for my mileage, it's easier to alter the lower end size range of adult patterns, for example, with a small bust adjustment or grading out any hourglass-type curves.
I've taught my older daughter (Hazel above) some sewing, and when Zoe said she wanted to learn some sewing, I had a few edits on my approach.
I still wanted to start with something Zoe would actually wear. A lot of classes start with the pillowcase or bag, and while that's not wrong, I've found that doesn't really stoke the fire. In my experience, if they sew something they'd actually wear and are excited about wearing, you can keep that sewjo momentum going. Apparel sewing does require more hands-on teaching than a pillowcase, especially when everything seems to be in the "advanced beginner" category, and it will take longer than a pillowcase, but if the desired result is to make a life-long maker, I feel the extra effort is worth it.
Zoe wanted to start with pants. Of course she did. We went with the tried-and-true Sew House 7 (SH7) Free Range Slacks. I've made this pattern quite a few times, it is what Hazel is wearing up above in the rayon faux jumpsuit outfit, I know SH7's drafting and sizing, plus bonus points for pockets and elastic waist. Zoe picked a stiff, high quality quilting cotton with cats on it from Josephine's Dry Goods in Portland, Oregon. (If you know your quilting cottons, it's a Windham. Windham fabrics are generally more on the thick, stiff side and will hold up as casual pants for our purposes here, as opposed to say, Tula Pink or Kaffe Fassett which have the tighter weave, almost lawn-feeling, thinner quilting cotton.)
There are so many details we forget as we progress, all of these little details we do on autopilot, that I feel these sewing lessons are teaching me to be a better pattern instructions designer as well.
After Zoe finished her pants, she realized they were a bit light weight for winter wear and has mostly been wearing them as home lounge pants. Dear reader, you and I may have predicted this outcome, but I felt it was a lesson that needed to be experienced and this is why I let the quilting cotton as pants happen, knowing they'd likely be used as lounge pants until spring AAAANNNNND was the perfect segue into Design Your Wardrobe.
I'm a big fan of Seamwork's Design Your Wardrobe series and being a member. Right now, there's an open sign up for the next series, but as a member you can always access past series. For me, it's a great way to plan and stay on-track both stylistically and just to get sh*t done.
From a teaching perspective, it is perfect. Zoe and Hazel have both started the series guided by me, to plan future sewing plans. Now that they know what is involved with the actual sewing part and how long a garment takes, they can plan their next patterns and look at their wardrobes more holistically.
Zoe is using a binder for her "class" with a see-through cover. This doubles as her mood board and fabric swatch holder.
This is Zoe's first time doing DYW, so as with anyone, she's still getting a feel for it. Once you go through DYW a few times, this comes much more naturally and focused. Zoe's own words here are typical of what most adults put their first time too and I'm really happy with her work.
Zoe pulled fabric from the Workhorse Studio for her own personal stash and inspiration basket.
Zoe then took items in her wardrobe, her fabric swatches, and her ideas of future outfits, and combined them by drawing on some of the Seamwork provided croquis.
Before Zoe makes more final decisions on her next makes, we took her new Free Range Slacks and did a photo shoot with her current clothes to show how capsule wardrobes can be made, how to keep a cohesive aesthetic, and how to combine prints. Drawing on croquis and coloring patterns is nice, but it helps to see real life combinations and movement, even in dreary winter.
Front and back shots with a basic cropped sweatshirt and her ride-or-die shoes of the season, oil slick Dr. Martens.
Some classic 90s grunge-is-back-again pairing...
A brief freezing shot of just a polo, with cats naturally...
and a side shot to make sure we consider silhouette and fit.
And this is where we are at now. Next steps will be committing actual project plans to paper and executing those plans.
Let me know if any of this resonates with you! Do you use a sewing planner or vision board like DYW? Have you ever taught anyone to sew or knit and have insights that might help?
**Not a sponsored post but for the sake of transparency: I do know some of the Seamwork folks, Seamwork does donate to the local Frocktails, which I organize, and I have submitted material to Seamwork. So while there is no sponsorship for this post, all opinions are my own, I pay for Seamwork out of my own pocket, and Seamwork has no idea I'm doing any of this, you may assume correctly I have bias from having previous pleasant experiences with Seamwork.
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My name’s Eric, and I just found your site – workhorsepatterns.com – while surfing the net. You showed up at the top of the search results, so I checked you out. Looks like what you’re doing is pretty cool.
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My name is Eric and unlike a lot of emails you might get, I wanted to instead provide you with a word of encouragement – Congratulations
What for?
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More importantly, how do you make a connection with that person?
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Hey, this is Eric and I ran across workhorsepatterns.com a few minutes ago.
Looks great… but now what?
By that I mean, when someone like me finds your website – either through Search or just bouncing around – what happens next? Do you get a lot of leads from your site, or at least enough to make you happy?
Honestly, most business websites fall a bit short when it comes to generating paying customers. Studies show that 70% of a site’s visitors disappear and are gone forever after just a moment.
Here’s an idea…
How about making it really EASY for every visitor who shows up to get a personal phone call you as soon as they hit your site…
You can –
Talk With Web Visitor is a software widget that’s works on your site, ready to capture any visitor’s Name, Email address and Phone Number. It signals you the moment they let you know they’re interested – so that you can talk to that lead while they’re literally looking over your site.
CLICK HERE https://jumboleadmagnet.com to try out a Live Demo with Talk With Web Visitor now to see exactly how it works.
You’ll be amazed – the difference between contacting someone within 5 minutes versus a half-hour or more later could increase your results 100-fold.
It gets even better… once you’ve captured their phone number, with our new SMS Text With Lead feature, you can automatically start a text (SMS) conversation.
That way, even if you don’t close a deal right away, you can follow up with text messages for new offers, content links, even just “how you doing?” notes to build a relationship.
Pretty sweet – AND effective.
CLICK HERE https://jumboleadmagnet.com to discover what Talk With Web Visitor can do for your business.
You could be converting up to 100X more leads today!
Eric
PS: Talk With Web Visitor offers a FREE 14 days trial – and it even includes International Long Distance Calling.
You have customers waiting to talk with you right now… don’t keep them waiting.
CLICK HERE https://jumboleadmagnet.com to try Talk With Web Visitor now.
If you’d like to unsubscribe click here http://jumboleadmagnet.com/unsubscribe.aspx?d=workhorsepatterns.com