Refashioning - Boys Can Sew!

I've always wanted to get my son involved in refashioning but never had the chance to until last weekend. At the beginning of the year, he told me he wanted to learn how to use the sewing machine  and I was very happy that he mentioned it (although secretly I think it's because stepping on the pedal is very much like driving a car!)!

So, we ended up doing some cutting, painting and a little bit of sewing.  Two hours later, we ended up with a "new" pair of shorts, a very happy kid, and a proud mummy. This is an easy peasy project.  Click below to read more!

Measure from the child's hip down to a suitable shorts length.  Your child can help in deciding on the length and reading off the tape measure. 

Take a pair of trousers which are too short - we had two pairs, jeans and khaki.  Get your child to lay the trousers flat and mark the length that was just measured onto the garment's legs.  Add another inch below that mark for seam allowance. Under your guidance, your child can make sure that the leg lengths are equal, and then they can cut the trousers along the second mark.  Remember not to leave them alone with scissors.

Before we got to the sewing, we had some fun with some acrylic paint and a stencil. We used a non-toxic paint, Americana, and a dinosaur stencil. The stencil was a gift, but you can make your own using old clear plastic files. Or you could just paint free-style using anything you can find in the house e.g. sponge, bottle caps, cookie cutters.  Just remember to place scrap paper or cardboard under the fabric to prevent the paint from transferring.

As you can see, my son is a fan of dinosaurs!

After the paint had dried, we hemmed the raw edges with the machine. I taught my son how to thread the machine - it was pretty easy as the machine had numbers to follow. The difficult part was getting the thread through the needle. 

I let my son press the foot pedal when we ran the shorts through the machine, but I held onto the garment. He managed to get to grips with the different speeds - he can now master extremely slow to medium pace. Once this was all done, we sewed the hem with a needle - this was difficult for an 8 year old so I ended up doing this part, but he helped in threading the needle and making knots with his fingers. He was very patient!

I hope this is the beginning of a great relationship between my son and refashioning!  It's a great skill to have, don't you agree?