Sewing with Children

The head teacher from my school is leaving after 30 years as head. He will be very much missed by all the children and staff and as a result we have spent most of the past term getting things ready for his leaving. One of the things that we did was that each year group designed and made a present for him.

I teach Year 6 (10-11 yr olds) and we decided that we would make a quilt for him. For a number of weeks I spent all my Tuesday afternoons teaching 60 children how to sew, embroider and make a quilt square. Each child designed a square with something that they thought was important or special to our head - ideas ranged along the lines of gymnastics, trains, Red Cross, 2012 Olympics, school logos and the school itself.

The children then made a template from card, cut out the shapes they would need from coloured felt and sewed the shapes on. They then used either embroidery or fabric pens to decorate their squares and when I finally had enough I sewed them all together, backed them onto wadding and made a navy blue quilt. It is about the size of a single bed and actually looks really effective. I was so proud of what the kids managed to achieve - especially as some of them have never done any sewing whatsoever before! What really impressed me though was how much they actually enjoyed doing it - even the boys!