One of the things I love to do is spend time each week at our local Boys and Girls Club teaching a small group of girls (and now one boy) how to sew. I started last summer by having them write stories in sketch books I got them and then lay down a background in fabric and baste it. Then we planned a foreground in fabric to fit each story and began to stitch it in top. Well, those were taking too long for them so we put those aside and began making smaller works to eventually sew together into small books. They got very excited about sewing their "pages" since they could get each one done in a relatively short period of time. Each page could tell a little story, too. All the sewing is done by hand and I have a huge collection of embroidery threads in every color imaginable that they call the treasure box.
Here is a small sample of some pages of one of the girls.
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| book page 1 |
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| book page 2 |
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| book page 3 |
I love her free style. She composed all these without my help. Her mother says she just wants to sew all the time. It's such a joy to pass this skill on to another generation. This particular girl even wants to teach some of the other girls in the club how to sew when I'm not there. She's hoping to start a little club on her own soon. I'm linking this to
Off The Wall Friday where you can find other art quilt blogs. Please make comments on their posts so that they know you stopped by. Thanks for visiting.
Wow, it's great - the girl's pages are great and what you do teaching kids is great (for them and for you too, I guess;)) Makes me feel guilty I stopped trying to teach my own girls to sew((
ReplyDeleteIt is good for me, too, to teach these kids. I was a science teacher in public schools for 23 years and I always got back a lot from the students. I wish I could teach more to sew, but there is only one of me and only so much time in a day.
DeleteGood for you Regina! Looks like she's a budding artist!
ReplyDeleteNot only her. The others are very good, too. I just didn't have any of their work to take photos of that day when I had my iPad there.
DeleteA wonderful idea! This little girl has talent.
ReplyDeleteShe has a real eye for color and style for sure.
DeleteSpectacular!
ReplyDeleteTheir ideas blow me away sometimes.
DeleteThese are wonderful!
ReplyDeleteThanks. All of us are joyful when one one is completed.
DeleteWhat a great project! You have inspired me to see if I can do something similar at our nearby youth center. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteOh, please do! I see you are trained as a biologist. I'm trained as a biologist/chemist so I throw in science to these kids all the time. I bring little science demos to show them and help with their homework, too. One of them wants to work at NASA so I'm encouraging her and another finds science boring so I'm trying to show her how fun it is. It's great fun for me since there are no papers to grade or lesson plans to prepare!
DeleteShe's made a great start.You are a wonderful inspiration for these girls.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping to stay with this same group for many years. Hopefully they won't move away.
DeleteI'm so impressed with all the girls' work.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone. Inspiring kids to sew is like installing a little light inside them. I've seen kids go home and teach their moms to sew as well as continuing themselves. I love the idea of making the task smaller so they can complete it, too. Great idea of an inspirational project.
ReplyDeleteThey are also sewing little purses by hand and small stuffed animals. One of the challenges is making sure they finish one thing before moving on to another.
ReplyDelete