Little stitches, homemade britches

Youngsters attend class to learn domestic art of sewing

Vivian Norton, 8 (right), watches her sewing project as Belle McKelvey, 8, assists during a three-day sewing clinic for children conducted by Arkansas Extended Learning Center in the Cammack Village Community Center.
Vivian Norton, 8 (right), watches her sewing project as Belle McKelvey, 8, assists during a three-day sewing clinic for children conducted by Arkansas Extended Learning Center in the Cammack Village Community Center.

Instructional books like Erin Bried's How to Sew a Button: And Other Nifty Things Your Grandmother Knew (published in 2009) underscore how, in the midst of today's technological boom, the domestic arts have suffered a blow.

Yes, this book really does have a section titled "Save Your Shirt: How to Sew a button" followed by another -- "Measure Up: How to Hem Your Fancy Pants."

There was a time when these were lessons pretty much universally taught at home by mothers and grandmothers or in schools by home economics teachers. But today's generation is missing that memo. When a hem opens and sags or a button slips from its unknotted thread, what can they do to avoid walking around in ratty clothes? Buy new ones?

That's where Arkansas Extended Learning Center's sewing clinics step in, teaching youngsters how to make a stitch in time.

This June and July, as it has for several summers, the community education business offered youth sewing clinics. The three-day workshops, priced at $99 each, met in the Cammack Village Community Hall. In addition to the children's clinics, classes are also offered for adults.

"When I first began teaching this class, I thought the popularity of sewing was on an upswing, but now I'm seeing less and less people sewing," says J. Zig Hill, a Little Rock businesswoman who teaches the classes.

"I think people are too involved in their own lives and work and would rather pay someone else to do their sewing. But there aren't too many people out there doing it as a business," says Hill, whose own business is J. Zig Hill Custom Sewing.

So it makes sense for anyone to learn at least basic sewing tasks.

Each day of the AELC's youth clinic lasts 2 1/2 hours. Young students learn to thread and operate their own sewing machines, brought from home, and cut out and sew a garment. Most of the children choose to make lounge pants.

Hill led the most recent clinic July 14, 16, and 18 with help from assistant teacher Dana Venhaus, who is also AELC's director. The 10 students ranged in age from 6 to 16.

"We had to turn kids away and get an extra helper for this clinic," Venhaus says. "Judging by our attendance, it seems to be a really popular class, so I think people are still very interested in sewing and knitting."

The sewing class has been taught through AELC for about the last decade, with Hill leading the clinic for the past six years.

"Our classes have included those for youth and adults as well as some parent/

child ones," Venhaus says. "Occasionally, a father and son will sign up for one or a dad will take the class with his daughter."

Venhaus says her daughter was 8 when she learned to sew with her in a parent-and-child class.

"I made a pair of pants for her and she made a pair for me," she says. "She still has the pair of pants I made her, and I still have the ones she made me."

While other students excitedly chatted, Brooklyn Young, 8, of Little Rock, a third-grader at Terry Elementary School, was quietly and intently working on a pair of pajama pants crafted from vibrantly colored, zig-zag-patterned material.

Why did she want to take the class?

"I thought it was going to be fun," she said. "This is my first time to try sewing."

Her grandmother has sewn clothes for her. "She's made me some sleep shirts and sleep pants," Brooklyn said.

In the class "I've learned how to cut out patterns and pin the pattern to the material."

What's surprised her the most about sewing?

"I didn't know we'd be using these," she said, pointing to straight pins holding her fabric in place.

After she finished the sleep pants, Brooklyn planned to make a dress.

Devin Bennett, 12, of Bryant said no one had to talk her into taking a sewing class this summer.

"I figured I'd have to learn how to sew sometime, and I thought it might be fun," she said, while her machine stitched a seam in some colorful fabric printed with the cartoon character Popeye. She'd bought the fabric herself and was busily turning it into lounge pants. But she wasn't expecting sewing to be so complex.

"I'm surprised by how hard it is and how easy other people make it look," she said.

"When you go into the store and see all these perfect stitches in the clothes there, you don't really realize all the effort that went into putting them there until you begin sewing."

Devin, from Bryant and a pupil at St. Theresa's Catholic School in Little Rock, said she would like to make a dress next.

"I was her age when I learned how to sew," said Devin's mom, Christine Bennett. "She was real excited to pick out her Popeye fabric.

"Last winter, I'd made her a pair of pajama pants and after that, I wanted to teach her," Bennett said.

"Anything that can make her more independent is what we want for our kids."

As the morning class progresses, snippets of instructions and praise for accomplishments fill the room.

I can get it through the needle pretty good by myself ...

Just don't push the pedal, Honey ...

See how we slipped one leg into the other and pinned it up around here? ...

All I want you to sew is the scooped area that's pinned.

Hill says all the youngsters she meets are fast learners.

"They catch on pretty quick," she said, while showing 6-year-old Vivian Norton how a seam ripper tucks under unwanted stitches and pries up or slices the thread.

But "the perfect age for learning sewing is 12 and 13 and up," she said. "The younger ones have a little trouble with their attention span."

Halfway through the second day of the three-day clinic, Grace Edwards, 8, proudly held up a pair of pink lounge pants so her fellow seamstresses in training could admire them. Her smile was huge. Not only did she have a pair of pants, she knew how to make pants: She could sew.

AELC, a private, independent business, began 16 years ago. It grew out of a program originally connected with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. AELC holds summer, fall and winter sessions offering a variety of educational classes for all ages. More information is at extendedlearning.org and (501) 666-0759.

Family on 07/30/2014

Upcoming Events