Learning to Sew - lesson 1

Bethan has been keen to have a go on the sewing machine. She's been watching me create stuff.
"I want to make a bag." - so today we began with the basics. Pinning two fabrics together and sewing a straight line.

I showed Bethan how to pin the fabrics at right angles to the line of stitching, so that the machine would sew over the needles; How to lower the presser foot to stop the fabric jumping around and how to guide the fabric through and tie off the ends of the thread.

As this was Bethan's first go on the machine before making her bag. I gave her two unwanted napkins, that were already hemmed, we placed the fabric right sides together and talked about why we did that. Bethan sewed three sides together to make a simple bag shape, clipped the corners, turned it the right was around and pressed it (also using the iron for the first time).

 It's safe to say that she was very pleased with her first piece of sewing - and she did it all by herself.