Year 10 - Button Holes

Inserting button holes can be incredibly challenging for both the students and myself! Because there are two different types of sewing machines in the classroom, I decided that this group of Year 10's will learn how to use both machines to insert a buttonhole. The picture below is of the instructions the students copied down in order to use the Bernina 1008 - one of the older style machines in the class. 

There were mixed results - some successful, some not so. The students were in pairs and used a small piece of calico to practise. Some of the machines were cooperative and a couple of pairs produced three or four practise button holes, whilst other machines played up and frustrated the hell out of the students.

With 30 minutes of the lesson to go, I showed them the automatic buttonholer on the Bernina B330 - this is the quick method! They were astounded at the simplicity and the speed at which a buttonhole was produced!

In the past I have only demonstrated the automatic buttonholer, and students were not appreciative of the ease in which this method creates a buttonhole!

I have always got to remember to get the students to use iron-on interfacing to strengthen the area the button will be inserted, otherwise the fabric tends to get 'eaten up' by the machine!

Textile's EOTC

I was able to take a group of year 12 and 13 students up to Auckland to visit the Zambesi work room on Tuesday, 23rd October.

We left school just after 8am and arrived at the work shop by 10:30, after being stuck in numerous delays on the Auckland motorway. 

We were shown around the work room by Liz Finlay (owner/designer) and able to gain first hand insight into how the industry operates - and in particular how Zambesi functions. The students were able to see everything from office work to pattern drafting and garment construction.

Liz was a truly fabulous host. She kept it very real - she didn't sugar coat anything!

We were fortunate enough to get to view the Zambesi Winter 2019 collection and spend time looking over garments and discussing elements of design as well as techniques undertaken to construct the garments. No photos were taken during that point of the visit!

 Before we left Auckland, we went to The Fabric Store to peruse the range of fabric and notions they have. The store was much larger than we anticipated and we met one of the Project Runway NZ contestants!

If we were to do this again, I would leave a lot earlier than 8am - to ensure that more time is spent in Auckland - and possibly visit a Zambesi store.

This was an amazing opportunity for the students and they were an absolute pleasure to take. I'm looking forward to doing this all over again, and possibly visiting other NZ labels.

This is a pic of the blog post on the Textile's blog. I shared the link with the FFC staff and have been getting really positive responses. I'm also hoping they will look at other aspects of the blog!! 

This is the slide show of the photos taken throughout the day