ABOUT THE TEACHER
I have been teaching the Classes for 6 years, but I have been sewing
for most of my life. As a young child I loved all sorts of crafts and was thrilled once I was considered old enough to use my Mum’s old Singer sewing machine at about the age of 10.
There was definitely a tradition of sewing within my family but for my Mum’s wartime generation it was a necessary skill, due to rationing and the need to save money.
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With a little encouragement I really started to sew in earnest and by the age of thirteen I was making most of my own clothes including coats and jackets. One of the first items I made was this coat when I was just 13 and it was made using the old Singer machine.
I sewed for quite different reasons from my Mum:
I wanted to follow the latest fashions but couldn’t afford to and as a teenager it was important to me to have an individual look.
In the process I saved a lot of money and got a lot of enjoyment from it. Back then it was much cheaper to buy fabric and make your own things.
I was able to copy something that was in the shops at a fraction of the shop price and that gave me a huge sense of achievement.
For my 18 th birthday I was lucky to be given a wonderful Bernina sewing machine and over the years I have made just about everything using it: many of the clothes for my children when they were young, such as my daughter in her costume for Pantomine.
For many years I sewed for a living eventually specializing in alterations. I still sew for myself, my daughter and my grandchildren.
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Of course times change, clothes became much cheaper and people busier and the craft tradition began to fade. Most people don’t sew now simply to save money but because they can’t find readymade clothes in the colour, fit and fabric that they want or they sew just because it is so enjoyable, satisfying and therapeutic. In this ‘throw away’ world sewing is a skill that gives you the opportunity to repair and upcycle all sorts of items and reduce the waste that the textile industry is a major contributor of.
Everyone who comes to the classes finds that you are ‘’in the moment ‘’that you aren’t thinking about anything else” and it is like a form of ‘Mindfulness’.
I think these benefits are the main reasons why there has been a big revival in crafts recently and of course it is lovely when someone compliments you on something that you have made. It is so nice to be able to give someone a gift that you have made especially for them.
All these years later I am still sewing, I love natural fibres and I got a lot of pleasure from making and wearing my warm wool coat.
Teaching the Classes gives me great joy and it is so wonderful to see the pleasure on someone’s face when they make their first item and then go on to gain confidence in this worthwhile skill.
Having been to various Adult Education Classes myself I am aware of how important it is to encourage people to go at their own pace and to adjust the lessons to what people want to learn rather than having a rigid curriculum.