Ad – Gifted item
You may have recently spotted on my Instagram or Facebook pages that Secret Projects recently challenged me to use their fabric scraps to create something new. I’m always game for a challenge and this one was a good opportunity for some creative textile work with the children.
We have been gifted a bundle of fabric scraps, and so this post is marked as an Ad. You can view my full disclosure policy here.
Who are Secret Projects?
Secret Projects are a company that seek to empower women in India through making and selling clothing and homewares. The fabrics that we were sent in the bundle below were are all off-cuts and scraps from the work these women do.
You can help the cause by purchasing a bundle of offcuts of even perhaps a pillow, a scarf or one of the other items available via the website.
How we used our off-cuts
I had initially had thoughts of making some snack bags for when we are out and about, but after hearing yet another disagreement this morning about losing spaces in books I decided bookmarks might be the way forward!
The off-cuts are a decent size and they’d be great for making a wide range of things. Some other ideas I had included:
- Making clothes for the children’s teddies
- Notebook cover
- Backing with towelling and making washable face wipes
- Patchwork cushions
- Beeswax wraps
Making the bookmarks
The first thing we did was to layout the fabrics and choose two each. Once chosen we got a bookmark for a template and added one CM around each edge. We used these templates to cut out the fabric pieces.
Once we had the pieces we pinned them right sides together and pinned a piece of string in between the pieces of fabric. The children then used the sewing matching to sew around three and a half edges before trimming them and turning the bookmark right side round.
I then helped them to seal the end and sew a small finishing tough around the edge.
Once they had done this they thread some beads onto the string
Learning for the children
We are really keen for the children to have creative outlets, and I think that learning to sew is a key skills to have. I can only use the sewing machine in a very basic way, but I want them to be able to use it to, even if it’s only to make small items or repairs to things. They had fun today and they learnt about how to place the templates onto the fabric, how to use the fabric shears and how to seal stitches. We compared the seams in their clothes to the seam we were sewing into the bookmarks.
And of course, getting hands-on with the sewing machine is great fun for the children. They are fascinated with how it works and spent a lot of time watching the needle move and looking at how the two threads stitch together.
I’ve tasked them with making another bookmark, but without my direct help; fingers crossed they can remember the steps!
sce
