After nearly two years of teaching sewing online, a Dundee sewing tutor is planning a retreat to bring the community together again.
Sandra Cassidy, who runs Sew Confident Dundee from her Broughty Ferry studio, is getting ready to host sewers from Dundee and beyond in September.
She will not be inviting them to her studio, but rather a luxurious weekend of sewing and socialising at Malmaison.
After seeing the success of the Glasgow branch’s sewing retreats, Sandra decided to host one of her own.
As well as two full days of sewing, there will be a three-course meal, goodie bags and social events.
“There’ll be me and another tutor there to help and it’s two full days to get away from your family to focus on sewing,” Sandra laughs.
Sewing boom over lockdown
Sandra started running Sew Confident Dundee in 2018 after working freelance as a tutor for the business.
The Duncan of Jordanstone graduate has seven tutors who help her run sewing, knitting and crochet classes.
She hopes the retreat will bring the community closer together after taking on loads of new sewers during the pandemic.
“The community isn’t just Dundee or as far as Forfar anymore.
“It’s reached further and really brought more people together.”
To date, Sew Confident Dundee has taught 1,200 locals to sew. Half of them joined during or after the first lockdown.
On top of that, a few hundred people from all over the country got involved in online activities over the pandemic.
Sew Confident in Dundee and beyond
Sandra’s sewing classes are about more than just learning how to sew, they are also about creating a community and being social.
Going into lockdown, the tutor feared her clients were going to miss meeting up.
She recalls: “We quickly realised everybody was going to miss that and needed it, because you’re stuck in your own house.
“It was a bit survival mode, but we were also trying to keep our customers happy, and they wanted projects.
“We initially started to buy in stock to make kits, so people could buy craft kits or kits for face masks or hand embroidery.”
Face masks inspired a lot of new people to pick up sewing, as many tried to make them at home and wanted to learn more.
Taking her sewing classes online also proved to be a learning experience for Sandra.
Despite some initial struggles, online classes proved to be a great move.
“I prefer teaching in the studio and one to one, but when you don’t have that option you’ve got to adapt,” she says.
“It was a great way of introducing a whole lot of new people to the hobby and keeping everyone going.
“It took us into a wider audience beyond Dundee and sparked people’s interest in doing something for themselves and having time away from work or family to relax.”
Sew Confident retreat for everyone
While Sandra is back to holding classes and “sewcials” in her studio, she still runs some online classes for people further afield.
For many of her clients she provided a lifeline throughout the pandemic.
“There’s definitely a few of our customers who have said ‘I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t found this hobby’,” she says.
“We’ve got a lot of people who were on their own completely and it kept them going.”
Now she hopes to meet as many of them as possible in September, as there are still clients she has yet to see in person.
Rather than business meetings, one of Malmaison’s conference rooms will be full of sewing machines and keen craftsters.
The tutor hopes the event will make more people see that sewing is for everyone.
“Sewing is growing, and people are realising it’s not a hobby for 60-year-old women.
“It’s a hobby for everyone, where you find time for and do something for yourself.”
