Allan Appel Photo
Sewing/quilting instructor Smith and Tegan with gift-to-be.
There’s a 92-year-old grandmother in Ohio who used to sew her own dresses. She will soon receive a pillow as a present from her granddaughter, the first item Tegan Thomas ever sewed.
That’s thanks to a two-day craft workshop in sewing — one of nearly two dozen arts and crafts-related activities ranging from jewelry-making to theater — featured at the Dixwell Children’s Arts Festival (DCAF). The festival unfolded this Friday and Saturday on the grassy field and track in front of the Wexler-Grant School and adjacent to the old Q House.
The annual event, now in its fifth year, is a volunteer labor of love of a group of folks, many of whom are members of the nearby 190-year-old Dixwell Avenue Congregational Church, although the festival is not directly a church program.
Five years ago artist Deborah MacDuff Williams and retired educators Dr. Chuck Warner and Dr. Thomas Lovia Brown and others saw a need: “This is the Newhallville/Dixwell corridor. Our kids need [more opportunities] to experience the arts,” said Leta Highsmith, a DCAF organizer.
On Friday morning, Marcia Smith, a communications teacher at Housatonic Community College, was showing Amistad fifth-grader Tegan Thomas and her friends how to puff out the corners of the little pillow cases she’d help them sew on her shiny new Singer.
Three of four corners were done. One was left open; Tegan went to stuff in the batting.
Smith’s mother was once a seamstress. It took a visit to the festival for her to take up the craft again. Now she teaches it every year.
After Tegan put in the batting, she returned to Smith, who showed her how to sew up the pillow using old-fashioned needle and thread.
“Many [kids] never used a sewing machine before,” said Smith. Many also didn’t know how to measure a quarter of an inch and sew up the pillow, she added.
So a lot of learning went on under the festival’s tents as well.
Smith reconnected with her own inner seamstress after attending the festival four years ago. She said uses the opportunity of working at the festival to talk to kids about the history of quilting in the African-American community.
“They used to make these [quilts] to keep the family warm and also as a storyboard telling of the underground railroad,” she said.
A true teacher, Smith said she wanted to be sure every kid left with a finished item, a sense of accomplishment: “I like the joy I see in their eyes.”
Highsmith with 9-year-old Dylan Browder and plastic bracelet in-the-making.
“All art involves science, math, physics, if you can get kids interested,” said Highsmith (pictured).
After they finished their pillows Tegan and her friend Christina Ursini dashed beneath the rain to another tent, where they learned to mix music tracks.