Choosing Fabrics

I gave a class today, they finished their magic square pillows and the next project is the zippered pouch.

One of the fun things is choosing the fabrics for the pouch. The students need to choose about 40 strips of fabic, they are going to sew a large quilted zippered pouch for all of their sewing tools for the lesson.

They are given a container with all of the remnants created from other projects during the week. So every week there are new strips and colors that were not there last week.

Box of fabrics

I always find it interesting to see how they choose fabrics. Some of the students pull strips out randomly, without any attention to pattern or color and immediately want to begin sewing. Others choose specific colors and patterns.

Today one of the students was very specific with her choices. All the strips had to be solid colors and all of them had to be in soft shades, coordinating with the pale salmon pink of her sweatshirt :).

Fabric strips

I took out a box of zippers of course she chose the pink one

Choosing zippers

Next I have a box of fabric circles. They are going to learn to sew yoyos to decorate their pouches. They see flowers and I see students who are learning how to sew by hand. All of the things they do in class have an educational purpose to them. Whether it is sharing tools, helping those that work slower or bargaining with each other to get the colors of fabric that they want, or sewing circles into flowers, they are learning basic skills.

Choosing circles

I showed them what yoyos are and she asked if she could have the pink satin one.

Looking at my yoyos

Of course I agreed and then she searched for coordinating colors in the circles box

A selection of colors

And of course chose many pinks as well

Pink fabric circles

Next week we will see them sewing crumb patchwork into 2 pieces for the sides of the pouch, quilting and embellishing with yoyos.

#zipperedpouch #choosingfabrics #handsewing