First Projects

This is the course where the practice stops and the making starts. Ten units, ten finished things, arranged so that each one hands you the skill the next one asks for. You begin by learning how to judge whether a project is right for where you are now, then hem a set of napkins, sew a pillowcase, build a simple tote, make an apron, work through potholders and kitchen textiles, close a drawstring bag, replace throwaway household goods with cloth ones that last, sew a few honest gifts, and finally learn to look at your own finished work with a clear eye and know what to fix next time. Nothing here is a sampler or an exercise. Every project is something you will actually use, wash, wear out, and make again better.

It is written for an adult, most often a homeschooling parent sewing out of thrift and necessity, with limited hours and no patience for busywork. The instruction is plain and exact. Seam allowances are given as measurements you can cut to, stitch lengths in millimeters, needle sizes by their real designations such as 80/12 for ordinary quilting cotton, and fabric behavior described as it actually is under a hot iron or a heavy load. Where a project involves heat, a rotary blade, or a machine needle moving near your fingers, the caution is said once, clearly, and then you are trusted to be a grown person in your own sewing room. By the end you will be able to choose a project you can finish, cut it accurately, sew and press it cleanly, finish its raw edges so it survives the laundry, and judge the result honestly enough to improve on it.

The faith in this course sits in the work itself, not on top of it. Scripture treats skilled hands as a gift and finished work as something worth blessing: the women in Exodus who did spin with their hands, the garments made for glory and for beauty, Bezalel and Aholiab filled with the Spirit in all manner of workmanship, the woman of Proverbs 31 who layeth her hands to the spindle and maketh fine linen, and Dorcas, whom the widows remembered by the coats and garments she had made for them. Those passages carry the themes this course returns to again and again: doing plain work heartily, being patient with slow progress, stewarding cloth and money carefully, making things to give away, and clothing the body kindly and modestly as a good gift to the people around you. Every lesson carries a King James verse that belongs to what that lesson teaches. The course is 10 units of 10 lessons, 100 lessons in all, entirely self-paced, each lesson a short reading followed by a ten-question quiz that grades itself.