Helping to put Sewing in Schools

Its the day after Halloween but do you want to know whats really scary? 

Facing a room of 6-10 year olds each who are holding a needle and screaming for your attention. 

Yep folks I went into my sons school to teach the kids how to sew on a button and it was a baptism of fire. 

It started off as me asking the head teacher if she had seen that hobbycraft were offering free buttons to schools to encourage children to learn to sew on buttons. I also offered to source some fabric if she needed it. 

HUGE shout out to the craft cotton company who gave a generous box of fabric for the kids to use and who madce sure to include prints that the kids would love including spiderman and star wars to make sure the boys didn't feel left out.  

And as I took the fabric in I was faced with this question....

"so when do you want to come in and do it????"

HUH????? You want me to do it? Seriously? What can I say I thought I was offering supplies but I got roped into actually teaching the session as well! 

The general idea we had was that I would pre make a load of bunting and then the kids would draw on what they were thankful for [we did consider stitching but it looked like it would take far too long!] and sew on a button. Then I would take all the bunting home and attach it to bias binding and make it into long stripes of bunting.

FYI asking kids what their thankful for is HILARIOUS! You get the sweet kids who say "mummy and daddy" and then you get the ones who you know are going to be future hippies who say "trees" and then you get to ones who tell you their thankful for "x-box" BUT then you'll get one ABSOLUTE LEGEND who says he's thankful for "dragons" 

Yes folks 

Dragons!!!!!!

It was wonderful and terrifying at the same time. I was supposed to run four sessions but only ended up doing three because I was in out of hours on the last one with bad chest pains [Nothing to worry about I've just had to change my diet quite drastically]

For starters 30 kids each holding a needle is sweat inducing to say the least. Even if I did make sure to take the bluntest needles I could physically find.

Secondly apparently the actual sewing on of a button is a lot harder than I thought it was! Especially for small kids to get their heads around.  You could definitely see the difference between the kids who had done sewing at home with parents and grandparents and the kids who had never touched a needle and thread in their lives. 

But it was really really lovely to see all of the kids gain confidence in what they were doing and what they'd achieved. But do you want to know what sucks?

 Making kids cry!!!! 

Obviously that wasn't my intention but sewing on buttons is a frustrating business and a few tears were shed mainly because of tangled threads and buttons falling off after they thought they had been attached. I also had tears from a lil lad who desperately wanted to take his home to show his mum but sadly we'd already decided that they would be used to decorate the school and me and the teacher realised if we let one take his home then everyone would want to take home!

All in all I was really glad I went in to do it. Even if the first thing I did when I got home was pour myself a glass of wine to try and relax [Typically I don't drink before 6pm but after 2 hours of 30 small children wanting my attention I needed something to take the edge off.]

And the bunting looks glorious zig zagging the hallway and its so lovely that the kids can see their achievements every day and that hopefully a few of them will have been bitten by the sewing bug!!!!

The down side....

Lil man wants to know when I'm next going in.....

much love 

Frankie

P.S I highly recommend throwing caution to the wind and going into your local school and asking if they want you to go in and do some sewing. Yes its like entering the 7th depth of hell but its also a lot of fun!