Heacock, head teacher of family and consumer science, was told that she wouldn’t need space to teach sewing in a decade or so.
Interest in sewing would fizzle out by then, the project’s planners confidently predicted.
But when that distant day finally arrived, it turned out that the planners didn’t exactly thread the needle with the accuracy of their forecast.
Heacock’s sewing space — the family and consumer science kitchens — turned out to be insufficient, not irrelevant.
Student interest had grown so strong that the sewing program needed to be moved to a larger classroom.
This year, sewing class (an elective known officially as “contemporary fashions”) comprises five sections, filled to capacity with a total of 100 students.
“I have not seen this passion for sewing since I was in ninth grade,” said Heacock, a teacher for 32 years.
Back in style
Pushed out of vogue in the 1960s by cheap off-shore garments and the women’s movement, sewing is coming back in style among teens and young adults.
The rebound in its popularity mirrors the renewed interest in various home arts, from cooking to needlework.
Fueling the trend is the swing in women’s fashion toward personalized clothing and retro clothing, as well as the spotlight placed on clothing design and production by the reality TV show “Project Runway.”
As a result, fabric and sewing-machine stores say sales are up and their sewing classes are more popular.
Teachers of family and consumer science, formerly called home economics, often are finding that more students are taking sewing classes in school too.
An increasing number of students are showing interest in the fashion field as a possible career as well, teachers add.
“Before you might have had one or two kids, by the time they got to (higher-level sewing courses), say they were interested in a career,” said Hempfield High FCS teacher Vickie Kronenwetter.
“Now they say it the first day.”
The students, nearly all of them girls, get more than a skill and a skirt out of sewing class. They also get a chance to be creative and build self-esteem.
“I like the feeling I get after making things that I’ve accomplished something,” said Jolene Fisher, an eighth grader at Penn Manor’s Manor Middle School. “I feel good and confident about it.”
Fisher, who got a sewing machine for Christmas two years ago, after being inspired by seeing her grandmother sew, is making pillows and a blanket to give as gifts this Christmas.
Expressing themselves
“I like to make clothes. It’s a form of expression,” said Maggie Noon, a Warwick senior who enjoys fashion and is considering a career in the fashion industry.
“It’s so cool to go out and someone says, ‘I like your shirt,’ and I say, ‘I made it,” said Hayley Nickerson, a junior at the Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School, a cyberschool.
Nickerson also makes costumes for the Renaissance Faire and the American Music Theatre, where her mother Lisa Cuddy is a costume maker and dresser. Nickerson plans to make clothing for sale online.
Katie Kay, a Hempfield senior, related the same experience as Nickerson.
She’ll get a compliment on a totebag and tell the admirer, “I made it. They say, ‘Oh wow, it’s really nice.’ Or, ‘Can you make me one?’ I get that a lot.”
Kay described sewing class as a rewarding experience that combines fun with artistic freedom.
“There’s a lot of satisfaction at the end, when you finish a project, you get a good grade and it looks great,” she said.
FCS educators unanimously emphasized that the benefit of learning to sew goes beyond the tangible ones.
In other words, students get more out of the class than the ability to assemble fabric, buttons and a zipper.
Warwick’s Heacock cited the “sense of accomplishment” that students feel when completing projects, which in her class range from purses to dresses for the prom, homecoming and show choir.
“I have some pictures up of former students wearing their dresses to the prom. I can’t even put a word on it — how they feel when they’ve made their dress. It’s awesome,” she said.
Sister Patricia McGuigan, who teaches sewing at Lancaster Catholic High School, noted a similar effect as skepticism at the start of a project becomes satisfaction at the end.
“I say, ‘Trust me. It will be a pair of pajamas,’” said McGuigan. Then when it’s done, “instead of leaving it for me to grade, sometimes they say, ‘Can I take it to show my friends?’ I just ask that they bring it back the next day.”
“There’s a sense of pride...Now they can do something that not everyone can,” echoed Jennifer Kettering, the owner of “Made by Jenny” who advises a sewing club for grades six through eight at St. Anne’s School.
“When things get frustrating,” said Hempfield’s Kronenwetter, “they have to solve their own problems and move on. I can help them but I refuse to do it for them, so their finished project is theirs.
“They can feel good about it — and they do.”
Potential for more
Kronenwetter was among several FCS teachers who thought that enrollment in sewing and other FCS classes would be even higher if not for scheduling constraints.
One reason for that belief is the way FCS teachers have stitched together a more student-friendly sewing curriculum, allowing students to select their own project and fabrics.
“My goal for them,” said Warwick’s Heacock, “is for them to love the process, the whole sewing experience, so maybe they can go into the next project on their own.
“I’m a perfectionist,” she added, “but I don’t push that on them.”
As Kronenwetter put it, “I tell kids this is the best room in the school. You come in here and work on your own project, pretty much at your own speed.”
“The focus has changed,” said Becky Irvine, a Conestoga Valley high school and middle school FCS teacher who began teaching in 1968.
“There’s more of a creative aspect. Students aren’t asked to do such detailed work. The requirements are much less rigid. They have a choice of materials and patterns.”
Although contemporary sewing classes are less demanding than those in decades past, the students still learn a lifelong skill.
And along the way, they enhance abilities such as hand-eye coordination, dexterity and math, while getting valuable lessons in persistence and patience, the FCS teachers said.
Store sales rise
Outside the classroom, the heightened interest in sewing is good news for fabric and sewing machine stores.
“I wouldn’t say I’ve seen a huge increase, but there’s more younger people interested than there used to be,” said Stacey Morris, assistant manager at Jo-Ann Fabrics & Crafts in Parkview Plaza.
Like the FCS teachers, local retailers observed that the students want to make more than clothes.
Morris agreed with Tara Albin, supervisor at the Rag Shop on Columbia Avenue, and Joyce Bankowski, manager of Hancock Fabrics on Rohrerstown Road, that accessories such as purses and totebags are hot, as are home decorating items such pillows.
“A lot more people were into making their Halloween costumes this year,” noted Albin. Added Bankowski, “Making fleece blankets is very, very strong.”
Debbie Eager, manager of AAA Vacuum & Sewing Center on Fruitville Pike, is seeing more customers who embellish clothes, rather than make clothes. That’s leading them to buy computerized embroidery machines rather than traditional sewing machines, she said.
Although embroidery machines cost more — priced new at $500 and up, versus $150 and up for new sewing machines — they come with computer discs full of designs. Users also can create their own designs.
“We’re finding more and more people are buying the embroidery machines. That’s the hottest thing. You can embroider literally anything,” she said.
Noting that trend, in January AAA will begin offering a sewing and clothing-customizing class called “Make It You,” developed by sewing machine maker Viking.
The creative side of sewing is what appeals to Alyssa Zimmerman, a Warwick junior. She likes it so much that she spent $300 last year to buy herself a sewing machine.
At home and in sewing class at school, Zimmerman has made shirts, pants, dresses and purses. She’s also made curtains for a friend’s mother.
“It allows me to express myself,” she said. “You can make whatever you want. You can follow patterns or you can create your own. It lets you express your individuality.”
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