It would not have been possible without all the dedicated parent and grandparent volunteers who gave up their time to help in these lessons. A special mention must go to Alec and Charlie's Nana, Jeanette, who assisted in every class from Prep through to Grade 2. What an angel!
As you may have read in previous posts, we firstly mastered the technique of weaving and this then led us on to sewing. We looked at a variety of beautiful tapestries hung in museums around the world, as well as some very old and fine needlecrafts and embroidered cloths/robes. To begin developing the students' skills in sewing, they all started with a piece of rubber non-slip mat. This material was terrific for the students to use, as the holes are very large and easy for the younger students to grip and see the needle through the other side. It was also very easy to 'rewind' any tangles. As you can see, students learnt how to sew a running stitch with embroidery thread and then moved on to sewing on decorative beads.
Once this was mastered, some of our Prep students learned how to sew buttons onto a thicker shade-cloth type material.
Other students experimented with hessian and sewed buttons onto this different type of textile - which was also fun to pull out threads and make a fringed border! Students had the option of sewing a running stitch border and sewing their buttons on in a random pattern or to make a button tree. As you can see from the photos below, they have done an amazing job!
