Scratch the surface of someone who doesn’t like to sew, and you will likely find someone who had a bad experience with their sewing teacher at school, when they were first introduced to sewing.
I have heard many a story from people, how they were afraid of making mistakes at the displeasure of their sewing teacher. From then on, they never took a great interest in sewing and developing it into a lifelong skill.
My school experience wasn’t very different from most. One of the first projects I made was a patchwork pin cushion at Intermediate school.
It was a really cool thing to make being patchwork, which is an art form in itself, and I used that pin cushion for 19 years before a friend of mine decided my pin cushion was way too rust stained and old and she made me a new one.
My first sewing teacher was a formidable Indian woman whose English wasn’t the best. She was nice at first and gradually lost her patience with us the more complex the item we were making.
I remember making a picnic mat with a plate, knife, fork and spoon holders that rolled up into a scroll. Did I ever use the picnic plate mat? No. It was completely redundant on me, but the point of it was to teach us certain sewing techniques and apply them.
One of my last sewing teachers at school when I was about 14 years old was appreciative of my creative abilities, but she wondered why I would not follow patterns and mix prints and colours together. She would say to me “What would your mother say about this?” and I would have to reply “It was her idea”.
What I leaned from these experiences was, in order to enjoy making something in a class environment, the person who is doing the learning needs to be involved making the creative decisions about how it is going to look.
That is where the enjoyment is, in the creative making. And making things that can be u used in life regularly that is of your own.