Firstly, a big round of applause and many thanks to all of the almost 7,000 children from 27 countries and their wonderful teachers and parents who joined in to this years Global Kids Sewing Party and made the event a genuine party filled with fun, creativity and, of course, lots of never-before-seen softies.
We had a particularly high number of teachers joining this year which is great to see. Getting more softie sewing going on in schools is right at the top of my wish list! Several teachers partnered older kids with younger, often kindy-aged kids which is an idea I love!
For example: Kylie Gomez, a teacher working in Western Australia whom I recently interviewed, assigned each of her six graders to a kindy client. Their client discussed the softie they wanted, included colours they liked and even accessories. The older kids then turned the details they’d gathered into a felt softie and returned the finished product to their client. She had another group of kindy-aged kids draw a character based on a simple shape. The drawings were then given to her third and fourth graders to turn into softies.
In our interview, Kylie Gomez told me that she was really struck by how faithfully the older kids’ softies reproduced the younger kids’ drawings. This is a theme I often hear from parents and teachers contributing to Sew a Softie events: kids not only love sewing softies, they are good at it and look forward to expanding their sewing skills and creativity!
A lot of parents and teachers said that they thought that it was really enriching for their kids to see how happy they could make another person simply by giving them something that they had created from out of their own hearts and imaginations.
Also, thanks to Pani FloBo who spread the news of the Global Kids Sewing Party amongst friends and colleagues, we had a good-sized contingent of Polish teachers which is amazing. I love that Sew a Softie and the GKSP are able to reach across language barriers.
Here are some of the photos I received of the 2023 softie-sewing fun from all around the world:
