One of the larger projects that the children learn to sew in their annual sewing class is a patchwork quilt.
About 3 months into the sewing year once they have mastered the machine and made a pillow, pouch and bag they take on a project that they will get much use from. They sew a bed sized patchwork quilt.
This is a project where they have many hours of sewing and ironing which they love to do. They learn to line up, sew straight and correctly use pins.
They then back the patchwork front, quilt it and then bind it.
They come to class and find a table overflowing with precut squares from sheets that I have spent the year purchasing from charity stores for their project.
They choose squares and I suggest that they make a random colored quilt.
The children have their own ideas of how to work. And this one is very organized. Everything has to be just so :)
Very specific colors in a very specific pattern.
Some choose blues and turquoise
Some choose pinks
Sew and iron
Most of the quilting is stitch in the ditch and occasionally some of them master a wavy line. They are allowed to quilt in whatever style they choose to as the purpose of this quilting is twofold, lots of sewing practice and stitching down the patchwork front onto the backing.
And some choose random
He chose to quilt stitch in the ditch.
They also learn to bind their quilts
I can definitely say that once they have finished sewing their patchwork quilts they know how to pin sew and iron.