The tricky thing with teaching my kids to sew, is that I sew so much for them that they don’t often feel motivated to do it themselves. Birdie has been loving embroidery for the last few years, but she hadn’t shown a huge amount of interest in sewing. That was fine, and I always leave it up to them to decide. However, a few months ago she bought a new book after a recommendation from a friend. It’s called Millie Mak Maker and it really inspired her to start sewing and made her excited about things she could do herself. So this weekend she asked me if I could teach her to make a skirt, and you can imagine how excited i was. So today is the story of teaching Birdie to sew!
I highly recommend Millie Mak Maker if you want to encourage your kids to sew, (or if they just love reading!) it’s full of easy to sew projects and Birdie has a long list of things she wants to make next!
The first thing she did was to raid my fabric stash. She had a lot of trouble choosing, but ended up deciding on this pink and white striped linen cotton blend. I thought it was an excellent choice, i’ve used the blue version of this fabric for samples and it is very easy to work with. The only issue was that it is very slightly see through. So we made a little design change and decided to make it a two layered skirt similar to a favourite skirt of hers. That decision actually made things quite easy as it means she didn’t need to sew a waistband, as we inserted the elastic between the two skirt layers.
Birdie and I had so much fun together! It was pure joy watching her fall in love with sewing. And then proceed to offer to make skirts for every person she saw for the next week.
As a side note you might recognise this dress she is wearing – it was one of Bunny’s favourites at the same age! It’s a Mini Briar dress hack and you can read the post here if you’re interested or check out the tutorial here for sewing your own.
She had her frustrating moments as well, and at one point told me that she hated and loved sewing at the same time. It was so sweet seeing her experience the same things we all do when sewing, and I told her that was how everyone who sewed feels. I think my favourite part was about halfway through when she declared “mummy, can you please stop talking? i know what i’m doing, and i don’t know if you know, but it’s very hard to concentrate on sewing when someone is talking”. The amount of effort it took for me not to burst into giggles hehe.
She did such a great job and was careful and responsible. Doing every step herself, including the ironing, and proved herself to be the most pedantic person every about clipping threads. I can see the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!
So without further ado, here is Birdie’s finished skirt!
She is very proud of herself and had the joy of wearing it to church the very next day and telling all her friends she made her skirt. I think we’ve done it, she’s addicted now.
I absolutely loved teaching Birdie how to sew, and i can’t wait to see what she makes next! Welcome to the sewing club Birdie!
