Plain sewing

Media

Part of Philippine Craftsman

Title: Plain sewing
Language: English
Source: The Philippine Craftsman Volume V (Issue No. 7) January 1917
Year: 1917
Rights
Fulltext: 492 THE PHILIPPINE CRAFTSMAN quickly and quietly and hang up the towel. The work must be kept clean, and bits of thread, cloth, and paper, should be de posited in wastebaskets and not thrown on the floor. Unless pupils are required to keep the embroidery room tidy at all times, a splendid opportunity to encourage orderly habits is lost. Discipline is just as necessary in industrial as in academic work; but because of the difference in the character of the instruction, it is not advisable to maintain exactly the same standard of deportment in an embroidery class as obtains in a well ordered academic class. The pupils should be allowed to relax and even to talk or sing softly so long as they keep busy. This does not mean that they may be permitted to become noisy, leave seats without permission, neglect work, or interfere with their companions. Before giving any instruction, the teacher should see that all supplies are on hand; that the work is properly laid out; that each girl has the individual equipment required; that the pupils’ hands are clean; and that the class is attentive. Models should be placed where they may be readily inspected by all, and the teacher should encourage pupils to bring their work to her whenever they meet with difficulties. The instructor must ever be on the alert to correct mistakes. When starting a new exer cise, especially in elementary work, it will often be found advis able to let the more apt pupils assist those who are backward. Sometimes if difficult exercises and motifs are partially worked out on coarse cloth with colored thread of two or three times the size required in the perforation, the girls will learn more quickly than with only finished motifs to serve as models. Designs ought to be transferred under the immediate supervision of the teacher, and bluing should be used instead of stamping com pounds containing wax or tallow. Much work is ruined through carelessness in stamping, and this should be guarded against. Teachers of embroidery both at institutes and in regular school work, should understand that careful planning must be followed up with painstaking effort; that attention to detail is essential; and that success depends upon their ability to apply to em broidery the pedagogical principles that underlie all instruction. PLAIN SEWING. By Miss Myrtle Cook, Teacher of Sewing, Philippine Normal School. Many girls who take up teaching come from schools that do not offer special courses in housekeeping, and for this reason METHODS OF TEACHING AT NORMAL, INSTITUTES 493 normal institutes are giving them the training that they lack in such domestic arts as sewing. An instructor in sewing should have a very definite outline prepared for her classes before the opening of the institute. She should also provide patterns and a representative model of each garment to be made. If they are to be had, other styles of the same garment will be found helpful in making suggestions. The materials may be furnished either by the student taking the course or by the school. If it is possible for the girls to furnish their own goods, the instructor has a better opportunity to ex plain the kind of materials best suited to the particular garment, and the girls have a better chance to apply the information. The classes should not be large. No teacher can successfully handle more than eighteen girls; and the ordinary room used for sewing does not provide space for a greater number. Fifteen is an ideal number for a class in sewing. The sections should be of such a size that the instructor can carefully inspect each girl’s work daily, and so give the necessary individual attention. Then, too, when garments are being fitted in a large class, some girls are sure to lose time while awaiting their turn. A properly equipped sewing room should have at least one long cutting table and smaller sewing tables, the number neces sarily depending upon the size of the class; sewing machines, preferably foot power; drawers or lockers where each may put away her work; comfortable chairs, a stationary washstand, washbasins, towels; a properly equipped fitting room; an iron ing board and flatiron, meter sticks, two or three pairs of scissors, tape measures, tracing wheels, a skirt marker or two; some well-chosen books and magazines on sewing and textiles. A small basket or two on each sewing table will be found quite useful for holding waste ends of thread and scraps of cloth which might otherwise litter the floor. The cutting table will vary in length with the dimensions of the room; but a convenient size is 4.26 meters long, 1.21 meters wide and 91 centimeters high. The sewing tables should be lower; about 76 centimeters is the right height for the average worker. They may be short enough so that six girls can work around each, or long enough to be used for cutting when more space is needed. A saving of room is made possible by fitting the sewing tables with drawers at the ends and one on each side, and the cutting table with twelve on each side. Tracing boards made to slide above the drawers will be found useful. A sewing machine will be needed for every four girls. It should be one of simple mechanism for which repairs can easily be ob494 THE PHILIPPINE CRAFTSMAN tained. A supply case should be provided for the teacher, and it is absolutely necessary that each girl have some sort of locker where her work may be kept clean and safe. One corner of the sewing room may be inclosed for use as a fitting room, the walls of which need not extend above the floor for more than two and a half meters. Screens may be used when nothing better can be secured, but these are not entirely satisfactory. This room should contain a full length mirror, a triplicate mirror being the best; a fitting platform about 76 centimeters square; also a small stool for the one who is turning the bottom of a skirt. The equipment for the sewing room should be provided for in the same manner as is all the A part of the sewing room at the Philippine Normal other equipment for the school, and a small fund should also be set aside for the purchase of sewing needles, pins, machin’e needles and oil. The methods of teaching sewing at institutes should differ very little from those in use by the best industrial teachers in any school. One conducting the class in sewing must present the subject in such a way that the teachers in turn will be able to present it. A class of teachers should be taught to recognize the limitations of the girls in the different grades, but they should also be able to give them more advanced instruction whenever they are qualified to receive it. If the teachers at tending the institute have done a great deal of careful sewing, and if they have the principles well in mind, then the instruction may be much broader in character; but if their early training METHODS OF TEACHING AT NORMAL INSTITUTES 495 has been neglected, they must go back to get the fundamentals before they take up the more advanced steps. The garments which the teachers make for themselves should be fitted to them before the class, the instructor seeing to it that the work is done properly. When making children’s garments the girls can easily bring younger brothers and sisters from home and fit the gar ments to them. A normal institute class will have time, perhaps, to make only a small model of a certain seam, this to be used by each teacher merely to show how it should be formed. For practice a sewing class in a municipal school may make the same seam on a waste piece of cloth before applying it to a garment. Instruction should be so given that short methods which may be used at the institute on account of the briefness of the time allowed, will not be used in place of the ordinary method when the teachers take up work with their regular classes. A normal institute sewing class will of necessity have to do much outside work. Practice classes should be conducted as model classes or little will be accomplished, since there will be time for only about twenty recitations during the entire institute. A daily period of not less than eighty minutes should be de voted to sewing; if less time is allotted, too much of the period will be lost in putting away the work and dismissing. If sewing is not given an equal weight with other subjects, the teachers will not take the interest in the course which they should. The equipment should be so abundant and kept in such perfect order, that the fewest moments will be lost by girls in waiting on each other. There ought to be time sufficient not only for doing the actual sewing, but for a certain amount of lecture work on textiles. ELEMENTARY HAND WEAVING IN PAMPANGA. By J. A. Robbins, Division Industrial Supervisor, Pampanga. The elementary hand-weaving course at the Pampanga division normal institute consisted principally of work in hard strips in which lapat was used. The instructor in charge of the class was sent to Manila to attend the vacation assembly where she took the course as a preparation for her work at the normal institute. Her grade at the vacation assembly was 99 per cent. As a further preparation, two teachers were detailed to have a quantity of lapat on hand at the opening of school so that the work could be started on the first day of the institute. Also, before the teachers arrived at the school building on the first day,