2018 - Term Two - Week Two - Sewing

Text and photos by:

Henry Dickson of "The Electric Space Smarties"

 

This week our students learnt how to sew. We made a bag from cotton fabric.

First we were shown how to use the sewing machine,

Slide in a piece of fabric, put the foot down by pulling on the lever so the fabric doesn't slide out and the needle doesn’t break.  Then push down on the pedal with either your hand or your foot (Mostly Foot) and then the thread will sew into the fabric and if you need to turn, push down the needle, lift the foot then turn the fabric and put the foot down again.   

 

Once we knew how to use the sewing machine we had to try it out so we got used to it before we started making the bag.  We were given a small piece of fabric so we could try out the sewing machine.  We did patterns and shapes at all angles and sizes, here’s what some of them look like:


   

Next we started on the bag itself.  We were given three pieces of fabric, two thin and one thick.

The thin ones for the handles and the thick one for the bag.  First we started by folding the handles and ironing them. This took a while to do as we had to do them individually.


Along the way, we learnt stuff like how to make different kinds of lines: Zig Zag, etc…

and how to cut the extra string away.


By the end of the two hours we had five complete bags with different patterns:

  

In the end it was a great session.

See you next week.


Henry