This week’s ribbon skirt workshops are giving young people hands-on experience with sewing machines, garment design and traditional skills.

Ribbon skirt workshops are still going strong this week, and the sewing machines have been busy. Youth have been hard at work bringing their skirts together, carefully stitching, checking their seams and adding the final touches to pieces they have been designing and making themselves.

What started as fabric, ribbon and ideas is becoming a finished garment, with each stitch adding another little piece of personality. Along the way, participants are picking up practical skills in basic garment design, learning how to confidently use a sewing machine and figuring out the details that help turn a handmade piece into something they can be proud to wear.

The workshops are also a great way to connect traditional skills with contemporary creativity. Ribbon skirts carry important cultural traditions, but there is plenty of room for individual expression in the colours, patterns, fabrics and designs young people choose for themselves.

Most of all, the workshops have been fun. There is plenty of concentration around the sewing machines, but also plenty of conversation, laughter and the satisfaction that comes from making something with your own hands. These are skills that can stick with you for years—and the finished skirts are looking beautiful.

We can’t wait to share the final results!