Every school holidays I try to spend a day with The Besties kids having fun. We’ve made and iced cookies, made shrinky dinks and this time we made pyjama pants. Of course as an unofficial Aunty I fed them chocolate coated waffles and cans of fizzy drink, along with the regulation sandwich. The kids badger me to reveal the school holiday project each holidays, I always feel so loved! You could always plan a project of your own with a friends kids if you don’t have children of own. If cabin fever has your kids driving you nuts, why not plan a project with a mum friend, you can have a coffee together while you help the kids work on their project.
To get started I asked Bestie Girl (12yrs old) & Bestie Boy (almost 10) to bring some pj pants from home that fitted them well. I helped them draft a pattern, the way we did it was very similar to this tutorial, so you can try your hand at making your own. BBoy & BGirl picked some fabric from the stash (the yellow is an interlock & the chevron is cotton jersey) and helped me to pin the pattern on and cut out. Neither BBoy or BGirl had sewn a thing before, so there was lots of safety chat and explaining before we really got into sewing.
I decided that overlocking might be easier. Yes, I let them overlock alone but I was only a few steps away! Both kids really enjoyed practicing on scraps but were a little worried about sewing/overlocking their pants. BGirl took to it really well and ended up doing most of the sewing for both pants. I was very impressed. BBoy quickly worked out the limitations of my cramped space and was the most awesome helper, he darted around passing things to everyone as they were needed. Both BBoy & BGirl were thrilled with their pants and it was a joy to see them dancing to old mowtown songs, showing off their new pj pants! Our only calamity was a broken needle, the result of a jam, which luckily came right at the end of the day.
I just love the way kids set about tackling tasks and thinking things through. I think understanding how things are made is so educational. I certainly answered a flurry of great questions on how & why and how things are made in factories. Sewing is such a wonderful life skill and fostering interest through fun is the best way. Well I think so,I hated home Ec, believe it or not! I think school can suck the fun out of things.
Did you sew as a kid? If you sew, have taught your kids? BGirl & BBoy are very excited to have made these cute as a button pants and I know they’d love to hear your comments. Please leave comments here as they are not yet 13 so they don’t have facebook xxxx
4 Comments
What a great idea, the kids did a great job! It is awesome that they got involved and their pants look great, a skill they now have for the rest of their lives.
Good job they look great i hope to make more soon
awesome pants especially the yellow ones with the stars good job kids.
Awesome pant patterns especially the black and white Zig Zag ones