Colleen has always loved to create. When she was very young, she quickly learned to sew by hand, crochet, and knit, among other crafting skills. My plan was to teach her to machine sew once she was hand stitching very well. Somehow, that has never happened. Between the ordeal it is to clear the dining room table, declare it off limits to other people in the house for the day, and finding a time when a teen is in the mood to sew as well as not sick or achy from arthritis, and… learning to sew with a machine hadn't happened yet.

Then I saw an interesting course~ HomeEc Online. This course walks you through the basics of learning to sew at home right from your computer. The projects looked beautiful and appealed to my teenager. The course is taught through a private website and uses lots of detailed photos, written instructions, and some video.

It looked like a course that would be very appealing to my daughter, as well as other high school students {or moms} who didn't have anyone else to teach them to machine sew. Why hadn't I seen this program on any other homeschool blogs? So I decided to approach Home Ec Online about a partnership. Home Ec sponsored my trip to the Titus 2:1 Conference, and I would write about how we are using the online course (which they gave me free, but did not ask me to say anything specific besides my honest opinion and how we’re using the course). I love crafting and love helping others learn to craft, so I love that I can let other homeschoolers know about Home Ec Online! {Plus, Leigh-Ann is a sweetheart!}

When our spring full of sickness and asthma flares-ups settled down, Colleen and I picked a day, declared the dining room table off limits to legos, coloring, and any other invasive force, and then we got right down to sewing.

The course kicks off with a video to help you learn about your sewing machine, all it's parts, and what they do. The ladies are great teachers and explain everything slowly and clearly. Colleen is going through the work independently, but I listened over my shoulder from the computer to make sure she didn't need any additional clarification or guidance.
 

Colleen spent several hours on the first few lessons. She went through the video to familiarize herself with the machine, as well as another video that taught some troubleshooting tips. At that point, she looked a little unsure of what to do next. Sometimes she's a little timid when she's learning a new skill, and I think the sewing machine may have intimidated her just a tiny bit.

So I got her started by showing her how to thread my machine and explaining its quirks. That got her moving. Once she had confidently threaded the machine, I suggested she just get some scrap fabric and practice sewing some straight seams. After sewing about a bazillion seams all over her small piece of scrap fabric {grin}, she felt ready to move on to the first project.
 

After much looking through all of our fabric, she finally chose the two pieces of fabric that she wanted to use to make her drawstring bag. She happily measured, cut, pinned, and sewed until it was time for dinner. I'm sure she will have her little bag finished in no time!

Then came the million dollar question:

What did she think of Home Ec Online?

Here are Colleen's thoughts:

• The videos are great and very descriptive.
   
• They gave lots of links to other sites and videos to help show you exactly how to do things.
   
• The beautiful pictures show all the steps.
   
• The projects all look exciting!
   
• I like that they explained all the tools and even told you which brands are best to use.
   
• I would have loved even more videos.
   

There were a few times when an instruction didn't make much sense to her, but after reading it again it became clear. Of course, learning any skill that is unfamiliar is like this. You just can't visualize what the instructions mean because you've never seen it done before. In this case, rereading the step or just plunging in a following each step exactly as the instructions describe will often sort out the confusion.
 

The course was not created with high school students in mind, but it works well for teens. If your teen is very independent, she should be able to handle the course fine on her own. If your teen is a little more timid, you may need to provide just a little guidance to help get her moving or to make sure that she practices some stitching before simply plunging into her first project– which would likely mean mistakes and ripping out stitches to start over. No one needs to start off a new skill with frustration.

I am so glad that we are using Home Ec Online to teach Colleen to machine sew. I think this will gives us the perfect balance of Colleen being able to learn at her own pace, while still having me here to help with any details she may be unsure about.

I will give you another update later this summer to let you know how the rest of the course goes for her~ along with photos of lots of pretty, finished projects!

HomeSchool High is sponsored by Apologia.

I hope you'll tell them a big "thank you"!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now it's your turn. What have you been doing this week with your high school teens?

Check out the Link-Up Guidelines, grab a button or banner for your post, and link up your post– old or new.

Be sure to visit some of the other ladies who have linked up! Leave them an encouraging word. Let's link arms, ladies! Spur one another on to the finish!

HomeSchool High…

(#HSHigh)

Ideas, Resources, and Friends…
so It's not so scary.

The post Learning to Sew at Home {HomeSchool High Link-Up} appeared first on the daisyhead.