Article written for Inside Embroidery Magazine August 2004

“Once upon a time……” I remember when I first learned to sew; I’ll bet you do too. I made doll clothes at age 7. Then soon after I decided to make clothes for my cat, Peaches. My mom sewed; so did my aunts and most of the women I knew. My sister and cousins (who lived nearby) didn’t really like to sew but they were always impressed by my “creations” and amazed that I could get the cat to actually wear them and lay in my doll buggy. ‘Course the dolly bottle of milk I taught her how to hold in her paws and suck on might have had a little something to do with it!

No photos are available of those wonderful outfits my cat got the privilege of wearing but my memories are priceless.

You have probably noticed that kids today aren’t so different than we were then; they still like to “DO” things with their hands. My daughter, Nikko Linn, and I have developed a program for elementary schools (4^th and 5^th grades), that lets the kids do just that! Make things, have fun and while they are at it they learn a whole lot of life skills too.

In 2003 we did our first pilot program in her 4^th grade classroom. In the course of studying WA state history they chose an historical event and then designed and made, by hand, a quilt block to commemorate that event. It took us 10 weeks of once-a-week, 1 to 2-hr classes, to study quilt history, learn some color theory, learn how to thread a needle, make friends with lots and lots of math, and finally to create a class quilt.

We required the kids to do all the sewing by hand; that was fun and a real challenge to some. You may remember your first attempts with needle eyes and thread? Most had never, ever held a needle in hand and had no idea what to do with it, or the “string”. We solemnly informed them that string was for kites and thread was for sewing!  We all had a good laugh with that one. Several had quilts at home made by grandma and gladly brought them in to share with the class.

One boy, who wasn’t very proficient with needle and thread, even after lots of practice, took his partially finished block home to work on it over the weekend. When he returned on Monday with it all finished we were surprised. Then we looked at the back and saw that some of the stitching was so neat and tiny we just ‘knew’ he had finished it on his mom’s machine. Nikko quietly took him aside and asked him how he had finished it so quickly. He just beamed and said “My mom helped me with some of the rows. We talked about how she supported us two kids when we were still in Brazil and she took in sewing for rich people. She did this for several years and became so good at it that her sewing looks just like machine sewing. I didn’t remember all of this and so we talked and talked about it and those years when I was so little. Now that I know how to sew too it was neat that we could do this together. I am so proud of my mom. Her sewing fooled you too, didn’t it?” Nikko said “yes it did! I thought that she had done it for you on her sewing machine.”  

Each of the kids, all 23 of them, loved their Washington History Quilt and it was on display in their classroom all the rest of the school year. Sometimes they put it out in the hall for the other classes to admire. We digitized each of their blocks and printed them out on iron-on sheets of 18” x 18” squares of heavy white cotton for them to take home. Several made pillows; some made book bags with them and others just hung them on their bedroom walls. The quilt followed them into 2004 and the 5^th grade and was on display in their classroom. They bequeathed it, with great pride, to the school at the end of this session.

In 2005 we gave the same kids the chance to study business by starting their own partnership companies to make and sell designer pillows. They all learned that there is a big difference between “book-learning” and practical application of those skills. We had lots of fun and so did they; studying about, and writing, their own commercials, learning lots more math, color theory, and learning how to sew on a sewing machine. The best part they said was getting their License To Drive. You’ll laugh at this. They had to sew, without thread at first, on lines drawn on an 8-12 x 11 piece of paper. Following those lines was harder than it looked and there was lots of giggling going on while they accomplished this part of the project.

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