Children have begun gradually, for a limited number of hours each day to go to school. They still have many hours where they are at home and have nothing to do. So people in the community have been volunteering to keep them occupied.
My contribution is to teach of course. They don't know how to sew yet, not even sewing by hand. I had to be creative when thinking of how to keep them occupied and interested for 2 hours. I am going to do a series of workshops teaching them how to create interesting items with t shirts.
What I normally do when I have a teaching session like this is ask each child to bring t shirts that they had planned on moving on. School t shirts that are too small or even stained and torn t shirts (they have to be clean of course).In addition I normally go to a charity store and purchase additional t shirts from there. The charity stores aren't open of course so after doing a seasonal change in my closet I came up with a few more t shirts to add to the pile and the community contributed as well..
What should I teach them I asked myself. I don't know these children yet. I don't know how energetic they are, what their concentration span is and what their motor skill are like. When I plan a session like this I have to take all the above factors into account and plan the items that I am going to teach accordingly. I will be giving them a series of lessons so the second and third and so on will be easier to plan.
For the first lesson I have a lot of preparatory work. I decided to teach them to create a bag from a t shirt so I had to round up at least one t shirt for each participant.
Next, another t shirt for each one so that they have a ball of t shirt cord. I cut and prepared one for each child, one for myself to demonstrate with, and put a few aside as extras for the class. I prefer that I cut the shirts and prepare the cord for the first class, and this is speaking from experience. I don't know how they cut yet and I don't want to have to relegate the shirt to the pile of t shirt scraps.
In the series of classes I will be teaching them to create different styles of t shirt jewelry, bags, pillows and scarves. beginning with the more simple techniques and moving on to the more sophisticated in the later classes.
I don't know what they are taught, if at all, about the subject of reuse in class at school. They will be getting an introduction into the various practical reuses of t shirts and from there we will move on to the creative side of the workshop.
When I cut up a t shirt I use all of the pieces. See here how I cut a t shirt for reuse
And this is how I created t shirt yarn for them this week
I will share their creations after the lessons.
If you would like to learn to create elegant jewelry pieces and accessories from t shirts, there is a 30 page PDF Download Tutorial available here on Etsy
and here on the site
In this tutorial you will learn how to make t shirt yarn, 4 necklaces and a t shirt pendant.
T-shirt fabric is an excellent source of recreation material. It is easy to cut, doesn’t need to be hemmed and can be stretched for a more elegant look. It is very versatile. It can be braided, crocheted, knitted and knotted.
T-shirt yarn is a very inexpensive material which enables us to create beautiful jewelry, fashion and home décor accessories.
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