Make Welcome Refugee Sewing School

08/19/2026

Classes are coming! We've got machines up and ready to go, and new Chromebooks charging. Class is just around the corner, and this may be one of our biggest years yet!

08/18/2026

We were so busy doing class prep that picture taking didn't really happen much. But here's a quick moment of precise measuring as we worked on preparing to welcome our 40 plus sewing students to a new year of classes.

08/14/2026

As this incredibly beautiful Afghan dress illustrates, many of our students come in knowing how to sew already. So why are we teaching? Well in the United States we use electric machines, patterns, precise measuring, and and different types of seam finishes. Plus there's a whole realm of English vocabulary that's needed to get a sewing job and isn't taught in regular esl. Our goal in classes is to help brand new sewers gain mastery, and experienced sewers transition their knowledge to American Manufacturing standards.

08/12/2026

Hey, friends! If you're interested in supporting our sewing classes this year, here is an easy way: Buy a gift from our wishlist. This is what we need for starting Make Welcome Refugee Sewing School this fall. We've got 45 students and some of our supplies are worn out, broken, etc, so we're replacing a few things. Thanks!

Find the perfect gift—no app download needed!

07/23/2026

AI decision making as illustrated by Guess Who. As one student commented, there are sure a lot of questions you have to ask to figure things out! She's not wrong. Also, we jumped into a little bit of Scratch programming, creating face responsive programs.

07/22/2026

Our new AI class for refugee women is following advice from the North Carolina Department of Information Technology latest report as we help our students understand the technology, evaluate the programs and learn how to use AI tools in their everyday lives.

07/21/2026

Over the last 12+ years, we've taught a LOT of sewing lessons to limited English speaking students. We regularly get asked to consult with a new program and are always happy to share lessons learned...but then we thought, what if we make these resources more easily available? So here it goes! The launch of a resource page for teaching sewing skills to refugee and immigrants:

Teaching Sewing to Limited English Speakers Welcome to our sewing resources for ELL students. Our program has been providing both hobby and manufacturing sewing skills training for the last 12 years. In that time, we’ve discovered and developed lots of helpful resources and learned a few things ab...

07/16/2026

Prepping for our upcoming art and conversation day.

07/09/2026

Today AI class students explored algorithms, decision trees and classification systems, preparing us for jumping into some actual programming next week. ⌨️ and our micro:bit kit just arrived. Teachers are excited about exploring teaching physical system programming in the days ahead.

07/06/2026

So much fun painting and talking about food today! Summer art classes are a highlight.