For the past year Riah has been designing her own garments. What this amounts to is her setting up my little fold out table that I take along to quilt retreats and taking clothing she already owns and changing it up. She does everything by hand, sitting at that little table. Most items get put in a drawer when she is finished, some have been worn to school, once. Her only sewing background is in making a couple of quilts. This consists of mom’s help cutting out and her sewing a straight seam. We purchased her a sewing machine a couple of summers ago and it is set up in my sewing room. I don’t do garments or much of any kind of sewing except for my quilts. I really don’t have the knowledge to help her, with that said I have decided to go ahead and jump in there and get her started. I thought some basic sewing would be a good idea to get her going. We decided to make some journal covers. I purchased Composition books at the drug store that had a regular binding, not a spiral binding. We made a basic book cover then sewed a ribbon on for closure.
As you can see once we got started it was hard to quit. They were simple and a lot of fun. She thinks these will make great gifts for her friends. Next up we are going to do pillowcases for her bed. From there we are going to try a skirt. I purchased a basic wrap skirt pattern. No buttonholes, no zipper, no elastic. How can we go wrong? I certainly hope we can’t. I like seeing her enthusiasm for this. It is quite catching and has me excited for her. This could be a passing fad for her or maybe it will turn into something she enjoys for life, it doesn’t matter, as long as we are able to spend this time together. In the meantime, if it lasts a year then I am definitely signing her up for sewing classes at the local sewing center next summer!
