My friend let me borrow her young daughter, Miss L, for the afternoon so that I could teach her how to sew a pillowcase. I googled pillowcase tutorial and chose to use Kirsten*can's because she had a very convenient one page download. To make this lesson as smooth as possible I chose three fabrics based on Miss L's color preferences. We'll go to the fabric store for another lesson.
Miss L ironed the fabric while doing an excellent job of keeping her fingers well away from the heat. I taught her about the rotary cutter but explained that it was very dangerous and that an adult should do that part. (She is after all only eight, or will be within a week.) After I trued up the edges I handed her the ruler and let her measure and mark the cutting line. She cut that with scissors and then it was on to the good part - the sewing machine! Fortunately mine has a speed control which we set to the slowest speed. Towards the end Miss L requested that it be sped up a little. She was doing well so we sped it up a tiny bit.
Yes, there was a tiny mishap of sewing a fold into the pillowcase. That's okay because we then learned how to use a seam ripper. Of course the most important lesson was that it's not a big deal to mess up because it can be fixed.
By the end of the afternoon Miss L had a fantastic looking pillowcase. (I serged the inside seams once she had finished her sewing.) Don't you think that it looks great?!
Awesome!
Posted by: Kristin L | July 14, 2009 at 11:31 PM
Hey that's great! What a fun time you two experienced. That is a nice looking pillowcase.
Posted by: Kathy Link | July 15, 2009 at 04:46 AM
Hey that's great! What a fun time you two experienced. That is a nice looking pillowcase.
Posted by: Kathy Link | July 15, 2009 at 04:46 AM
That does look great. It's hard to go wrong with that heather ross fabric!
Thank you for reminding me that this is a totally do-able project for my daughter!
Posted by: kirsten | July 15, 2009 at 06:53 AM
We used to do pillowcases for the kid's sewing camp - always a great first project and they are SO proud of themselves! Awesome fabric - bet she loved it.
Posted by: Judi W | July 15, 2009 at 01:20 PM
Lucky she had such a nice sewing machine to use! when I was learning, we had a terrible singer that would tangle threads all the time. I thought I went to heaven when my mom bought a Bernina!
Posted by: PaMdora | July 19, 2009 at 12:11 PM
And THIS makes me want to make some cool pillow cases! What a fun gift this would be!
Posted by: carrster | July 31, 2009 at 07:19 PM