This past weekend at the Baltimore Heritage Quilt Guild Expo, we sized kids using our sizing shells and showed off our Tabby Jackets and our new Opus Quilted Jackets in kids sizes.
Our book, Sewing Quilted Patchwork Jackets, includes the Opus pattern in sizes 2-12 for kids in addition to adult sizes XS to 3XL.
If you want to help a boy or girl learning to sew, begin by reading our previous post, Look! I Made This. Our good friend and kids’ stitching expert Edye provides lots of suggestions for teaching a young person to feel comfortable using a sewing machine while making some very simple but fun projects.
Once a basic knowledge of a sewing machine and an ability to read directions are established, the Tabby can be a great next project with you by their side.
Here are some tools we have created to help you.
- The Instruction Book for the Tabby Jacket is full of great tips on guiding a kid in this project. Read it first before you start to use it with a young person.
- Make sure you understand all the terms and directions. If something seems new to you, check out our Glossary of Sewing Terms.
- Download our Suggested Schedule for successful Tabby Jacket sewing which offers suggestions for short sewing sessions, mastery of tools and equipment, and more. This is a great summer sewing project when kids are staying for a visit.
- Stitch a Tabula Rasa Jacket beside your young sewing friend, maybe even ones that share a fabric or two, so they can learn by example.
- Once their jacket is sewn successfully, celebrate, and introduce the Tabby Flats handout so they can begin planning their next jacket and you can help collect materials to keep encouraging sewing success.
- Check out the special design section in the Tabby Instruction Book, after the general instructions, for suggestions to change up the design, add a pocket or two, make it a vest, and add a lining.
Right now we are offering a Mother’s Day special, bundling the Tabby Jacket for kids and the Tabula Rasa Jacket for grown ups, with a 25% discount. We have also added lots of fun photos of Tabby and Opus Kids jackets to our Pinterest pages and our online gallery and Blog Archive to inspire your stitching projects.
Let’s all work together Sewing Kids Jackets to keep sewing alive for years to come!
Happy sewing, RAE
