Hi! We’re so glad you’re excited about Sewing School. When we were young like you, we couldn’t wait to learn how to sew and make things all by ourselves.
When Amie was a girl, she was lucky because her mom taught her how to sew. Amie especially liked to make her own outfits. She learned how to sew buttons and add patches to vintage clothes that she bought at the thrift store. One day, Amie wore a skirt she made by wrapping a piece of fabric around herself and fastening it with safety pins!
Andria’s mom also sewed. At Christmas, Andria could always find homemade stuffed animals and dolls under the tree. Every spring, she would help pick out a pattern for the dress her mom would magically whip up by the time the Easter Bunny came around. After Andria learned how to hand-sew using her mother’s scraps, she started making blankets and pillows for her teddy bears.
Now that we’re all grown up, we sew even more. After college, Amie started sewing again because she couldn’t find cute clothes. Today, she sews skirts for herself; pajamas for her husband, Eric; clothes for her kids, Phoebe and Frank; and toys for her two cats. Amie also teaches kindergarten and runs an after-school sewing club for her students.
Andria loves to sew new pillows for her home and blankets for her dog, Cassius. Last Christmas, she practiced sewing with her niece, Maclin. Andria works at an art museum and often looks for unusual fabrics from around the world.
In our spare time, we like to teach children how to sew. Every summer, we hold a Sewing School day camp at Amie’s school. These campers, ages 5 to 13, tested all of the projects in Sewing School. They also modeled for our friend Justin, who took the photos in this book.
We love sewing with kids. You already know that it’s easy to sew — you just want to learn how to use a needle and thread so you can create stuffed animals, make presents for your families, and play veterinarian by mending your own toys. The patterns in this book are very basic, because we know that you have the imagination to “make it yours” as you go.
Writing this book was very important to both of us because we want kids everywhere to be able to learn how to sew. Now, you don’t have to attend Amie’s school, or wait until next summer rolls around to enroll in our camp. You can learn how to sew whenever you want, right inside your own home.
We hope that you will love sewing as much as we do. And we hope that someday — maybe soon or perhaps later on — you’ll help teach other kids how to sew, too!
— Amie Petronis Plumley & Andria Lisle