Sewciety Kids provides a comprehensive sewing curriculum for children, designed to teach modern, skill-building projects that inspire creativity.
Two years ago, Lyndsey Stanfill wanted to teach kids how to sew. The owner of Made Stitch Co., a “modern sewing school and sewing shop” in Louisville, Kentucky, had great success teaching teens and adults. But she didn’t want to create kids’ classes from scratch. “That is not how I wanted to spend my time,” she says.
Enter Sewciety Kids, a curriculum developed by Megan Whitney and Meg Bulthaupt of Urban Sewciety, a fabric store and sewing studio in Westfield, New Jersey.
Creating a “Done For Your” Curriculum
Sewciety Kids is a sewing curriculum for children ages 7 and up, with classes centered on modern, useful, and fun projects that teach skills sequentially. Each class runs about six weeks long, and students make two projects in each one. Before signing up for a class, kids take a workshop making a simple drawstring pouch that covers the basics of using a sewing machine.
The curriculum is meant to be a turn-key solution for new teachers. It includes not only patterns and detailed lists of materials, notions, and tools for each class, but also instructions for teachers on how to set up their classroom and walk kids through each step. There are also tips on how to help kids through tricky parts.
“I was able to use [the program] literally on day one,” Stanfill says.
Megan Whitney and Meg Bulthaupt, the creators of Sewciety Kids, have turned their passion for teaching into a polished curriculum used by studios nationwide.
The Challenge of Teaching Kids at Different Levels
Megan Whitney, founder of Urban Sewciety, began offering sewing classes back in 2015. She learned “very quickly” that it was difficult to retain students while also allowing new kids to sign up. “We needed an actual program,” Whitney says.
She hired Meg Bulthaupt as a teacher, and the two clicked immediately. They began to work together to come up with ideas for classes, slowly developing a curriculum. “We just kind of wrote it as we went,” Whitney says. Sometimes, they would show up to class not completely sure what project they would be working on.
But a few years later, Whitney needed to hire more teachers—currently, 275 students take classes at Urban Sewciety each week—and give the new hires teaching materials. This forced the duo to formalize their class plans and make them into a polished product.
“We’re perfectionists,” Whitney says. She estimates it took about three years to create four levels of the program. The two women did all of the writing and graphic design for the courses, hiring outside help only to draft the actual patterns.
The result is a time and student-tested tool that fabric shop and sewing studio owners can use to add kids’ classes to their businesses. A new student can take Sewciety Kids classes for four years and never repeat a project. Whitney and Bulthaupt are currently working on summer camp content as well.
Sewciety Kids has allowed Stanfill to expand her business and run Made Stitch Co. full time; she recently hired another teacher. “I’m a super fan,” Stanfill says. “The kids love the projects.”
Fun and practical projects like drawstring backpack, circle skirt and zipper pouches ensure students leave with skills and creations they’re proud of.
Lessons that Appeal to Kids
Whitney and Bulthaupt pride themselves on the modern, relevant projects that they offer, like a Dolman-sleeve top, pajama pants, and a zipper pouch for school supplies. They try to break away from the standard stuffed animals and pillowcases that often fill learn-to-sew camps and books for children.
“We don’t want [our students] to walk away with a rinky-dink project,” Bulthaupt says. A pillowcase that is included is a modern square with a patchwork design on the front and handmade piping around the seam—it’s easy to picture in a third-grader’s bedroom.
Each lesson plan is developed around a skill. For example, the piped pillowcase teaches students how to install an invisible zipper. Of course, Bulthaupt says, you can find a tutorial on how to install a zipper. “But it’s hard to give that away.” The Sewciety Kids course materials also have modern branding and consistently easy-to-follow instructions.
Rather than including tissue paper patterns for each student, the curriculum is a completely downloadable PDF resource. Teachers can print out a master pattern and have their students trace their own, or print out copies for their students.
Ensuring a Sense of Accomplishment
Stanfill says that every kid in every class she teaches wants to know one thing: “Am I gonna be done today?” Everyone loves the feeling of accomplishment that comes with finishing a project. Stanfill tries to impart an appreciation of the process in the kids in her studio, and her students often finish one or two projects each semester, which she has tweaked to run five weeks instead of six.
For those considering adding teaching kids into their business models, Sewciety Kids could be an affordable, straightforward way to start, even if they have never run a kids’ class before. Made Stitch Co. is Stanfill’s second career after working as a statistician at an insurance company. She says, “I have found a lot of my corporate skills have translated very well to teaching kids.” Breaking down complicated concepts into simple terms, for example, helps set her students up for success.
And maybe the most important quality in a good teacher is a passion for sewing. As Stanfill says, “I’m excited about it, and so they get excited about it.”
Sewciety Kids inspires a new generation to explore the art of sewing with engaging, age-appropriate lessons.
Alicia de los Reyes
Contributor
Alicia de los Reyes is a freelance writer and lifelong maker. She co-hosts the Handmade History podcast with her sister, Sonia, where they dig up stories and bust myths about people, materials, and practices related to handcrafts.