'By the end of the year, they're making their own clothes'
A learning by doing project is teaching South Aucklanders how to sew for themselves and their family.
Heather Black has always sewed, starting age 12 on an old-style treadle sewing machine.
It was a skill she taught herself out of necessity, she told RNZ’s Nine to Noon.
“We didn't have a lot of access to clothes. I was tired of wearing hand-me-downs, and so I just started making my own clothes out of sheets, blankets, curtains, whatever I could find.” she says.
Heather Black, on left, with two of her students.
Adult & Community Education
She’s now sharing that skill with others who, like her, don’t feel comfortable in traditional adult education settings. Black gained a diploma in fashion design and pattern construction but was always a visual learner, she says.
“When I started to do the lessons myself, I thought, well, there must be somebody, you know, there must be more people out there that are visual like me, that don't want to read a book about sewing, they just want to get in there and do it.”
She started to collect old sewing machines and kicked off her first class in a community house a friend told her about, she says.
“That was my first starting point. And I started with one class a week. And then they got quite popular.
“I got headhunted to go into primary schools and colleges. And now I'm at one school a week. I have a trainee that also does another school. We do libraries, colleges, primary schools, community houses and churches.”
It’s not easy to keep the project running, she says, attendees only pay a gold coin koha.
“I'm lucky enough that, I don't know, I just, I really love what I do. And so I just want to share it with everybody. I go online and I find cheap second-hand sewing machines. I'll use them for about a half a year to a year in class.
“And then I sell them off to my students at a reduced rate. So, I can start saving to buy more sewing machines. I've got a lovely lady at a cotton bank that donates me a lot of fabric.”
Her classes have now grown and expanded to run across Mangere East, Manurewa, Takanini, Ōtara, and Manukau.
“I like to have music playing because I feel like that kind of puts us all on an even level. And I don't hear my voice talking so much. But it's more a thing of I want it to be accessible, and I want everybody to feel like anybody can sew.
“I teach with what I call Māori methods. So that means that I use hand measurements to direct people into making clothing. So, I teach people from never touched a sewing machine before.”
Her students swiftly gain a valuable life skill, she says.
“I build them up to by the end of the year, they're making their own clothes for themselves and their family.”
But it’s about more than just making clothes, Black says.
“The reward I feel is like we get a little bit of a community, like a lot of my students make friends with each other, help each other. And I just feel really, really lucky to be able to have created an environment that I'm really happy to go to work every day.”
With the cost of living biting deep, the closure of some of the South Auckland community houses where she teaches is "heartbreaking", she says.
“Because there is such a need out there for people that want to help themselves. And one of those ways that they can do that is by sewing their own clothes, fixing their own clothes for themselves and their family.”
