Teaching the Kids to Sew...for Fun and Necessity

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I have always sewn.  Both of my parents sew and I can't remember a time that I didn't have a sewing machine.  Most of the time I just make dresses for my daughter.  She loves dresses made out of fun patterns and we always have a good time going to the fabric store and looking for ones that jump out at us.  When the recommendations came out regarding cloth face masks on Friday from the CDC, it was time to take the sewing machine out again.  I don't sew often enough that I have a lot of fabric lying around so I  pulled together a couple of scraps left over from dresses and my husband donated a couple of old dress shirts for the linings.

The kids loved the idea of helping to make something for the whole family and some friends.  There are so many different mask patterns out there and so I looked to find one that I thought would work for our family and settled on this one.  I wanted them each to help out on the masks even a little bit so that would have a sense of ownership for them.  I know masks in general aren't the most comfortable compared with unobstructed breathing and hoped that by having the kids participate in their creation that the necessity of wearing the face mask might be a little more bearable.

They worked great on our first outing and the kids didn't mind them too much.  By Sunday, they were used to the idea and didn't have a problem with it when we went out for our walk.



Since the pattern I chose isn't the easiest young and beginning sewers they only could sew a seam or two.  Once I finished cutting out what we needed for the masks I let them know we still had some scraps left and that they could sew their own bookmarks with.  We wanted the bookmarks to be large enough that they could sew on their own with only a little assistance but small enough that if we wanted to make some and send them to friends we could put them in a card.


For each bookmark we used 2 scraps of fabric that were 6" X 3"  and 1 rectangle of fusible webbing that was 5.5" X 2.5".  After cutting out all three pieces we ironed the webbing onto one side.  The kids helped me line up the pieces print side in and pin them.  We also marked a section that was about 2" in the middle on the long side that we we would not sew.

Once the book mark had been sewn around we flipped int right side out and used chopsticks to poke out the corners.  Then we ironed the book mark flat.  The kids each sewed all the way around the outside to close all the seams.  My daughter added her own flare while experimenting with the feel of sewing zig-zags and swirls down the center of her bookmark to truly make it her own.

It was fun for them to make something that they can use everyday and that is their very own!








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