Monday, July 3rd. The day and date are framed like a picture in my memory. It was sometime shortly before 9.30 in the morning. I was sitting in the passenger seat of my daughter Yiscah’s car. We were heading to the entrance to the Waverley library carpark. I was giving a Sew a Softie workshop there and Yiscah was doubling as my intrepid Sew a Softie assistant. As we drove by the library I remember noticing a line of people waiting for the library doors to open at 9.30 and I was thinking “That’s odd. That’s a lot of people going to the library. Well, I guess it is school holidays”. I quickly forgot these fleeting observations.
I was setting up for my workshop when the librarian came in to check everything was ok. I asked him how many kids had booked in, (I was expecting around 15 kids with a parent), “About 50 I think” he nonchalantly replied “and there are more downstairs waiting to book in”. For a moment I felt as if the ground had swallowed me up. The line of waiting parents and children flashed through my mind. I had supplies for 15. I’d counted on teaching an hour and a half. Clearly, there had not been a meeting of minds concerning the numbers. The immediate issue was “How can we make this work?” The librarians were great. Some went off to buy more supplies. Some pitched in helping to cut out felt squares. Yiscah, as always, was a dynamo…and the workshop went off with a bang: we were teaching for over three hours, we staggered the in-take into groups and when one group finished, brought in another. Everyone completed their softies and the feedback was fantastic. The kids were thrilled with their softies and the parents were impressed with what their kids, with a little direction, were able to create by themselves.
Here’s the tutorial if you want your kids to sew one of these little softies.
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