I would like to teach the girls how to sew. Where do I start? I do not own a sewing machine nor do I sew. I actually failed sewing in school LOL.
Ummmm...lol Find someone who can teach all of you? Really I would start with simple things, a little "pocket" for the kids to keep treasures in, and hand sew it. You can google and find all kids of how to videos for things such as sewing, both hand and machine.
Do you have a Joann's near you? They offer classes to teach the basics. You could also see if a hs co-op around you has a class on this.
depends on the ages. there are simple sewing projects at the craft stoes (like felt purse or felt MP3 player holder)..... anyway these simple projects teach a simple stich and also how to keep the thread from getting tangled (whick is the hard part sometimes) there are also sew your own build a bear which even my boys did. and don't forget to use your educator discount card! Don't forget that Home Ec. is also cooking, and other house hold things.
My mom would often do "sewing" baskets when we were younger. She would put a large piece of fabric on a hoop. and then she would have smaller shapes of fabric we were to sew on the larger one with a threaded needle. She would show basic stitches and we learned to sew this way. Also ebay has a TON of precut "quilt" squares. It is easy to teach kids to hand sew quilt blocks. (Pin them together, add a marker seem allowence to the back of one of the blocks and have your child just simple stitch the marker line. (They even have markers that fade away when you add water at Joann's. something like this: http://cgi.ebay.com/40-Strawberry-S...ltDomain_0&hash=item1c1b998d25#ht_3161wt_1139 You can do rows (Stitch so many blocks together in a line) or 4 or 9 patches. Also Redwork is a lot of fun (My mom and I will be teaching my guys Redwork this summer.) You trace a simple picture on a piece of unbleached mulism (Or any plain fabric). Then put a hoop on it. You use ONE color embroidery floss (And you take that apart and only use two-three strands on the needle.) and carefully stitch the marked lines.
i would suggest to do different kind of stitches done by hands, first. then move on to sewing two pieces together to make a small coins pocket, pillow cases, handkerchief....(i'm sure when you google, alot of ideas will come up). arts and crafts stores have these kind of small project. each type of stitches for certain kind of thing. for example - slip stitches will be correct one for hemming pants' and skirts' hem. after hand sewing and have more interest then explore about machine sewing then get a machine. this is how i learned. hope it helps. good health and happiness!
I would find an older lady at church who could teach them (or all of you!). I love when the generations teach one another!
This is good advice. Start simple. My Mother taught us a simple embroidery stitch, and she got us some really easy samplers to start on. That is what I would suggest for you.
You might also check out YouTube. They may have some people with instructional videos. Of course, if you don't want to buy a machine, I check with friends and see if anyone sews. I helped teach a friend's daughter who was home schooled. I hope to get her to teach my kids how to throughly clean a house. She cleans houses. I'd personally go straight to machine sewing, but I'm biased. I don't like hand sewing and only do it when I can't get around it. Lol. It's funny because I'm a seamstress.
Thanks everyone! I am going to look into Joann's since I have no idea. My mom is awesome at sewing but lives in AZ. *sigh*. She is coming out for 3 weeks so maybe I will have her start showing us. I will also be teaching cooking and how to do laundry and cleaning properly.
