Episode: 181 How to Teach Your Kids Home Economics | Real-Life Skills That Build Confident, Capable Adults

Jessica Clark (01:31)

Thank you so much for having me, Kody. I’m excited to be on the podcast with you.

Kody Hanner (01:36)

Yeah, so tell us, you know, tell us what you do.

Jessica Clark (01:40)

Yeah. So I am a mama of four, a homeschool mom. I also have my own business. About a year ago, we moved out to a five-acre property in southwest Missouri. So we’ve got lots of things going on in the garden and all of our animals, raising livestock, raising a lot of our own food, and teaching our kids a lot of this in the process. So I really connected with you when we got to meet at the conference. yeah. I was like, “This is my person”. So we do that. And then in addition to that, I have been designing and writing quilt patterns for many years. have been teaching quilting classes. I actually get to teach at the International Quilt Festival in Houston this fall in November. I’m super excited to be one of their teachers this year. And in the middle of all of that, I’m homeschooling my kids, and I’m always looking for resources and things to teach them new skills outside of just the academics. And as a quilter, I just had this light bulb moment of like, my goodness, why am I not, you know, sharing what I know with homeschool families? I’ve watched my daughter; I have a 14-year-old who this year has really just taken off with her sewing. She has made quilts, and she made a quilt coat and a quilt vest, and she’s made all her little shorts for summer. I mean, she’s just really taken off and flourished with it. And that is like something I’m so passionate about. Just watching my kids grow and learn all of these new things and kind of getting to be there for the journey with them. 

Kody Hanner (03:25)

So, that must make you so proud to have her, you know like stepping right up in your footsteps.

Jessica Clark (03:30)

yeah. And then in the middle of everything, you know, there’s the garden happening, farmers markets, all the things, just connecting with the community and doing what we can here in our little piece of the world.

Kody Hanner (03:42)

Yeah. You know, I love that, you know, reaching out for skills beyond the academics. And, you know, I think so many of us have that story right now of we have a desire to teach something, especially to our own children, and the resources just aren’t out there.

Jessica Clark (03:58)

Yeah.

Kody Hanner (03:59)

And so I mean, that’s basically my story too, is I was just shocked that there wasn’t an agriculture and like, you know, going into the home economics type skill sets for curriculum on those skill sets. And so I’ve been pursuing that for years with the food and ag, and I’ve kinda gone into survival and small engines and those types of things.

Jessica Clark (04:22)

Yeah. And so many of those things that maybe even were available are being cut and taken away. And so there’s such a need, I feel like, for people to learn these really valuable skills, being able to make things with their own hands, do things with their own hands for themselves.

Kody Hanner (04:41)

Yeah, and you know, the passion that like we have for these things when we’re teaching them, and like when we saw that need, like I see that like with my own daughter now, and like I think you met her on the trip. yeah.

Jessica Clark (04:53)

Yeah, yeah.

Kody Hanner (04:53)

I could walk away from my booth, and that girl rocked every side.

Jessica Clark (04:56)

She’s amazing. She is. She’s a rock star.

Kody Hanner (05:00)

Yeah, I’m thinking about keeping her, but you know.

Jessica Clark (05:03)

Yeah.

Kody Hanner (05:04)

You know, she’s really picked up on the food aspect of our house. You know, she does all of our food prep, and she does a lot of our cooking and meal planning, and we still do a lot of that together, but it’s so awesome to watch her grow into that.

Jessica Clark (05:19)

Yeah, yeah. That is awesome. And that’s something that we’ve seen in my own home. So this is our first year; this past school year was our first school year back homeschooling. And so obviously they’re able to knock out their academics really quickly. And then it’s like, what are we gonna do the rest of the day? Because you guys are gonna be productive and learn something. So one of the things I tasked them with was coming up with a recipe for the week, and everybody was responsible for making a meal. And my 10-year-old son just took off with that this year, and he made a curry from scratch. He woke up one morning, and I saw him in the kitchen; he was roasting spices on the stovetop so that he could grind and make his own, and I’m like, who is this person? But watching him serve our family this meal that he’s prepared with his hands.

And seeing the confidence and the pride that he had in feeding his family. So everybody at the table, all his siblings, are just going on and on about how delicious it was. And that just kind of fueled this thing to keep him like the next week, he was like, mom,

I’ve already decided what I’m gonna make. This is what we’re gonna do. And just kind of h having those little moments where they’re motivated on their own to learn these things. I’m not having to push it all. They’re so excited and eager to pick up the I created this like atmosphere, this environment for it to happen, but then they just take off and run with it. So it’s not like mom is telling him, you have to do this. He’s like, Hey mom, guess what I’m gonna do? Which has been great.

Kody Hanner (06:58)

You know, we were designed to be creators, not consumers. yeah. And as people, as we’ve moved away from that creator lifestyle, it’s actually like left a gap, like in our, you know, it causes anxiety, and you know, then you’re trying to fill it through just consuming media and things like that. And when kids are getting to like get their hands dirty and create something and go through the frustration of trying to figure it out, like that dopamine hit that they get from that is so much more powerful than the three-second scrolling.

Jessica Clark (07:32)

yeah. And having to, you know, creatively problem solve, and then when they get to that solution, just the pride that they feel and the sense of accomplishment and the confidence that then they have, and the next thing that rolls around, they’re ready for it. yeah.

Kody Hanner (07:46)

The confidence, yeah.

And that also comes from us trusting them to make those choices.

Jessica Clark (07:53)

That’s true.

That is true. And really

Kody Hanner (07:57)

I Which sometimes means I’m scrubbing jelly off cabinets.

Jessica Clark (08:01)

That’s

what I was gonna say. That means that I have to kind of step away from my kitchen and just let it become what it becomes. And obviously, you know, guiding along the way, but giving them room to explore, giving them room to make mistakes. Early on, when my first daughter was born, she’s 17 now, but when she was, you know, three or four, she was in that stage of wanting to be in the kitchen and help do all the things. And so she was helping me bake something, and she turned on the mixer and the flour just, you know, exploded everywhere. And I honestly, I just wanted to have that moment of like, my gosh, what did you just do? But I took a minute to to

Kody Hanner (08:44)

We are sweeping that with your hair.

Jessica Clark (08:46)

And just realizing it’s more important to me that she’s in the kitchen with me trying to learn these things versus the kitchen all being

Clean right. And so by choosing to stay calm. And so I just was like, I do that

all the time because I’ve done that many times myself. And I’m like, why am I going to get upset when I’ve done the same thing? And it’s not a big deal, and we can clean it up together and move on. But she doesn’t have this thing now where, I don’t want to go in the kitchen because, you know, I don’t want to make a mess and make mom mad.

Kody Hanner (09:22)

Well, it’s like too many, you know, even us, like, you know, we have kind of been taught that our kids don’t belong with us. Like your role in the house is to stay out of my way.

Jessica Clark (09:34)

And that’s such a shame. Like, my husband and I very early on made this conscious decision. Like, we’re gonna keep living our life and doing the things that we’re doing. And our kids just get to come along for the ride with us. So if we’re going on this adventure, well, how do we do this together? Versus, you know, finding a way to keep them out of the way so that we can continue doing our things. And because of that, they have learned and grown so much, and just us as a family unit, how close we are. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

Kody Hanner (10:12)

You know, I had never seen that until we started homeschooling our kids. Like in none of my friends’ families. I was an only child, so you know, I really didn’t see it at home.

Jessica Clark (10:22)

Yeah.

Kody Hanner (10:23)

But I think there’s like this stigma that you’re supposed to not like your siblings or not like your parents. Right. And, you know, social media and TV shows and everything, you know, alludes to that. But yet I can spend I mean, we spend all of our time together and genuinely enjoy each other.

And this, you know, our kids genuinely enjoy each other. And we’re

Jessica Clark (10:46)

Right. And

Kody Hanner (10:47)

even a blended family.

Jessica Clark (10:49)

And my husband and I are fortunate; we both come from families that are pretty close-knit. Like we enjoy getting together at the holidays and seeing everybody, and you know, we’ll spend vacation time together and do different things. So for us it was kind of like, well, of course we want to make sure that we’re fostering an environment in our house so that our kids are each other’s best friends and that we like to spend time doing things together and

That one day when they’re grown and gone, that they’ll want to come back together. That everybody just doesn’t kinda go their separate ways, and that’s the end of it. We’re not looking to be done in eighteen years. We’re hoping to, you know, have this tight, close-knit family unit for forever.

Kody Hanner (11:33)

I really hope that for you. You know, our two oldest boys moved out a couple of years ago. They’re twenty-one and twenty-two. And they, you know, really wanted to spread their wings. And over the last year they have come back. And not that we didn’t see them and stuff, but it was like, sure, I’ll come up for Thanksgiving, you know. And now it’s they hang out all the time. They come up to just watch a movie on a Friday night and spend time with their younger siblings, and our twenty-one-year-old and my two 17-year-olds are on the fire department together. And one of these spot fires that lit off recently, I mean, all the guys are out on fires, and our seventeen-year-old or our seventeen-year-old daughter, the one you met, and our twenty-one-year-old son took an engine by themselves and went and completely dealt with this wildfire, like this spot fire completely on their own. And I just caught a fly with my hands.

Totally didn’t mean to. Yeah, farm life. They went and put this fire out completely on their own. And by the time my husband got there, he’s the chief, and you know, like, so he was like trying to hurry and get there to make sure the kids were handling it. And they handled it so well that the homeowner came out and he’s like, You are training these kids great. Like they worked together like a well-oiled machine.

And they got the fire out on my property, and I, you know, like had nothing to worry about, and he actually ended up handing my husband a big check for the fire department.

Jessica Clark (13:11)

That’s awesome. Well, how cool that your kids can, you know.

Kody Hanner (13:16)

They were so proud of themselves. Yeah.

Jessica Clark (13:18)

Yeah. And as a mom, I just can’t imagine how proud you must have been, like hearing that report and being like, yes, those are my babies.

Kody Hanner (13:27)

I definitely was just like, and you know, those two, they kind of like they bicker the most, but it’s because they’re the most alike. And to hear like that report on them was just really amazing. So

Jessica Clark (13:40)

Yeah.

That when it came down to it, they can work together and get along and cooperate and all those things that you’ve worked so hard to kind of teach them.

Kody Hanner (13:49)

Right. I’m like, I’m so glad somebody else gets to enjoy them working wonderfully together.

Jessica Clark (13:53)

Now can y’all do that at home?

Kody Hanner (13:55)

Right. ‘Cause those are the first two to like start, you know, beating each other up and I’m like, my gosh, like can we just have a meal without a black eye?

Jessica Clark (14:03)

Ha, ha ha.

Kody Hanner (14:06)

So tell me how you got started in quilting. Because I mean, if we’re talking about how we’re teaching our kids, how did you get better?

Jessica Clark (14:13)

So I actually, I didn’t grow up around quilters. Nobody in my family quilted. My grandmother had quilts all over her house that she would buy. And so when I would go to sleep at her house, all the beds had quilts on them. That was something that I remember so fondly, and I loved having the best night’s sleep ever with her ceiling fans creaking and all cuddled up under those big quilts. So when I started having my kids.

I wanted to have quilts like that in my house for my own kids to, you know, snuggle up with and be all cozy. And so I started looking. They were hard to find, and they’re very expensive. And I’ve always been one that was just like, I can, I can make that. So I started watching some videos. There was

Kody Hanner (15:05)

that gene too. There’s nothing I can’t do.

Jessica Clark (15:08)

That’s, I think, that’s why I connected with you so well at that conference. I was like, she is my person. But I went to a quilt shop. There was a quilt shop about an hour from me that had classes, and so

I signed up for a block-of-the-month class. I showed up with this rickety old sewing machine from a thrift store that didn’t even really function properly.

had no clue what I was doing. And I walked in the door and felt completely like a fish out of water. And I just knew at any second the ladies were gonna figure out that I did not belong there. But I sat down at that table, and they were so welcoming and so helpful. And I ended up leaving that class with my first quilt block completed and

Felt so proud of myself in that moment and got to share that with my husband and my kids. And it was one of those things; it was so relaxing for me. Life was very stressful at that time. And being able to go do that, I walked out feeling so refreshed. Just that creativity that I was able to put into that and that time that I was able to spend on that project. And so that kind of started it all. And so I started working.

With some simple patterns. And I quickly discovered I really liked the design and the math side of the quilting. And so I just would see a pattern that somebody else had created and was like, I know how they did that. And I would just kind of write it up for myself. And that kind of led to me writing my own quilt patterns that now I share and teach other people how to do that. And really just my my goal when I started it all, I have found so much joy in the art of making quilts that I just want to share that with other people so that more people can kind of learn that. And there’s been this trend lately. There are more and more younger quilters. But when I first got into it, most of the quilters, like when I showed up in the room, I was always the youngest one there. And they were all retired.

Not even like grandparent age, but like great-grandparent age. You know, they were an older group of people, and there was this conversation around, you know, quilting is gonna die off with us if more people don’t start doing this. So being able to share it even with this whole new younger group of people who, you know, want to learn so we can keep this alive so that it keeps. going, and again it brings me so much joy. So to be able to share that with other people is really, really fulfilling for me.

Kody Hanner (18:02)

I, I like, I don’t even have the words at the moment because I just felt that so strongly. You know, and it with all these s like, handcrafting skills and cooking and so many things are just going by the wayside. And to see so many people in our world trying to bring that back. Like when I say our world, like

Jessica Clark (18:25)

And, so many of the ladies, so many of them were like, like you know, I do this, but my daughter wasn’t interested, or you know, my granddaughter wasn’t interested. And so even these ladies that they’ve tried to share it with the people in their lives, but they haven’t really valued it or appreciated it. And so to be able to kind of help people see it in a new way. And then I as I got into quilting, I just started with really traditional piecing.

And I quickly discovered how deep of a well quilting is. Like it’s not just patchwork. There’s all kinds of art quilts and collage quilts. And there are so many different techniques and so many different things that it’s this huge thing that I’m like, okay, I don’t know that I will ever fully learn and experience all there is to learn, even just in the quilting realm, because there’s so much. so it’s

It’s one of those things that’s always exciting because I can keep growing in my skills and keep learning new methods and new techniques while I take the things that I have learned and share those with other people who can learn to do those things. So

Kody Hanner (19:35)

That must feel so good. I, you know, my daughter and

I were putting together a cookbook right now, and it’s called Grandma’s Old Recipe Box, and there’s gonna be like a story woven through it of how we didn’t have grandma’s old recipe box. So we are creating those traditions and those rhythms together.

Jessica Clark (19:56)

I love that so much. That is that is incredible. And then to think like two and three and four generations down that they’re gonna have this thing that you didn’t have, but that y’all got to work on together. And that’s just that’s amazing. I love it.

Kody Hanner (20:12)

We’re having a lot of fun with it. And she’s really proud of herself. I’m hoping to be able to get it published like around her eighteenth birthday as kind of a because we’re putting both our names on it. So Yeah.

Jessica Clark (20:26)

That’s that’s awesome.

Kody Hanner (20:28)

So when you start teaching kids, like where do you start with quilting? When I mean, like, I know that’s kind of such a big question, but like where would you start?

Jessica Clark (20:40)

So something I didn’t share in the beginning about myself. So I actually have my master’s degree in education. I’m a certified teacher. I’ve taught special ed kids. So I

Kody Hanner (20:51)

You know, like just real quick on that way. All my kids have some sort of neurodivergency. And I feel like that pushed me into the parent and teacher and curriculum creator that I was meant to be, but I would have never reached that level had I not had all those challenges.

Jessica Clark (21:08)

Yeah.

And I think all parents kind of deal with some of those things to a certain extent. I

Kody Hanner (21:18)

Mm-hmm.

Jessica Clark (21:19)

Don’t know, maybe maybe your maybe your kids are this way too. But my kids, maybe even when we go out in public, they can be one way and kind of have all the things together. But then it’s like at home sometimes there’s these things that come out, and I’m like, okay, we’re overstimulated right now, or we just need to take a minute. We need to

You’re not; your brain is processing this thing completely differently than what. So let’s back up. But yeah, so with that and my experience teaching kids before I even had my own kids, and honestly, even in the adult classes that I’ve taught, a lot of the classes that I’ve been teaching recently, there’s a local shop. It’s not a quilt shop; it’s just like a local market where they bring in

local produce, and they have goods made by local artisans, local makers. And I’m teaching some quilt classes there. And a lot of the ladies that have shown up to classes, they don’t even know how to use their machine. They don’t even know how to, you know, so we have started kind of from the very beginning of this: this is how to turn on your machine. This is how to thread your machine. This is the basic, like, if something is funny, this is the basic steps you need to

Do, you know, re-thread your machine, re-do your bobbin, and normally that fixes it. So we kind of start there, and then we do basic straight stitches. We teach, so like with the kids, we’re gonna start with a very simple block. I’m gonna be teaching a variety of techniques and methods. So we’re gonna do some very traditional blocks; we’re gonna do some more modern blocks with curved pieces.

We’re gonna do some collage. We’re gonna do some different methods, but we’re starting with the basics and teaching them how to use their machine, how to sew a straight line on that machine, and how to keep their seam allowance consistent. And then how to cut the fabric so that when they have those pieces, if they start with accurately cut pieces and they can kind of accurately sew a seam where the allowance of the seam is kind of the same the whole way through, then they’re gonna end up with something that they’re really happy with in the end. So that’s kind of the basics of where we start.

Kody Hanner (23:39)

Okay. So like could I start at home with my kids?

Jessica Clark (23:45)

Absolutely. Absolutely. So with pretty simple supplies. So again, when I started, I just had a sewing machine from the thrift store. A lot of people that I’ve been talking to, they’re pulling out a machine that was given to them by their grandmother or their parents that kind of has just been tucked away in a closet. And so getting those machines out, there’s a certain foot for your sewing machine that’s called a quarter-inch foot.

And that is super helpful when you’re quilting. When you make garments and other things, a lot of times you use more of a half-inch seam. And when you quilt, you’re using a quarter-inch seam to put all those pieces together. And so having that foot is really important to give you success making those accurate seams. And the reason those seams are so important is when you say you put four squares of fabric together and you want them to kind of all line up and meet.

If you have that accurately pieced with that quarter-inch seam, all of those squares are going to line up, and you’re going to have that nice pretty grid. Where if your seam is a little bit sloppy and maybe you’re closer to a half inch on this one and a quarter inch on the other, then those lines aren’t going to line up. And so again, you can still make a quilt, but for those that want that accuracy, so again, we’re starting pretty simply with just making individual blocks and then

we will put those blocks together, and then I’ll be able to teach how to actually quilt that top. Because basically with quilting, you’re piecing the top. So you take all the fabric pieces, and you put them together, and that makes your quilt top. And then you have to actually put all those things together with a layer of batting and your backing fabric. And then when you actually stitch all those three layers together, that’s the actual quilting process.

Okay. And then binding to make that edge nice and finished. And so we go through all of those steps, but again, most of the time starting with just the really basic piecing of a block to kind of give people the confidence that they can do the other steps.

Kody Hanner (26:00)

So what’s the hardest thing about teaching kids to sew?

Jessica Clark (26:06)

So I guess there’s a couple of things. The one is those kids that are really perfectionists, and they want everything to be just so. Sometimes things don’t always go quite right. So then maybe they’re wanting to rip out all their stitches and start over again, which is fine. But that’s one of those things, I guess, is just kind of accepting some of the imperfections of it. A lot of times.

Nobody else even recognizes that there’s a mistake. They just look and see this beautiful quilt that is hanging there that they’re using. But the maker, a lot of times, will see those errors and mistakes. The other thing is a lot of times when people start quilting, they

just they’re in a big hurry. And so getting them to kind of slow down and focus on the task at hand.

Kody Hanner (27:00)

Okay, sorry. I’m hearing banging on my door, and I couldn’t tell if somebody was knocking or if it’s like a dog like scratching themselves on the other side of the wall or something.

Jessica Clark (27:12)

Yeah. So getting people to slow down, and take their time and really focus on what they’re doing.

Kody Hanner (27:19)

Yeah, I think I could see that being the most frustrating as well. My daughter does a lot of sewing, and she gets really frustrated with herself. Yeah. Trying to line everything up.

Jessica Clark (27:29)

Quilting is one of those things you kind of just have to be present and in that moment and just focus on what you’re doing and not be trying to race ahead so you can get onto the next thing on your to-do list, but just kind of giving yourself the time and space to, you know, just kind of be there and work on the project.

Kody Hanner (27:49)

So you have actually created a curriculum and

Jessica Clark (27:53)

Yes, yes.

Kody Hanner (27:54)

That’s like something I could do at home. So I don’t have to just figure this out on my own.

Jessica Clark (27:56)

Absolutely. No.

So we have a brand new curriculum. It’s called Foundations and Quilting. And I’ve created it to be 16 weeks long so that it kind of will fit into a school semester. And basically, I’m doing it in person for those who live close to me; I’m here in Republic, Missouri. And then I have an online version once every week.

For 16 weeks, a new video lesson and PDF will be released teaching the skills for that week. So, whatever the blocks or the part of the project that we’re working on that week, there will be a step-by-step video tutorial, and then there’s a very detailed PDF that comes with it. I’m using all of the graphic design things that I’ve learned while I’ve been writing quilt patterns and putting that into the PDF so that there’s lots of good visuals.

instructions for those that are really visual and like to see it. They’ll be able to see me on video up close, and then they’ll be able to see all the detailed illustrations in the PDF. And again, working in little bite-sized chunks. And by the end of those 16 weeks, the students will have made an entire quilt. They will also have made a quilted tote bag, slippers, and a notebook cover. So some smaller sewing projects where they can work on some other sewing skills in addition to

To the quilting. And I’m encouraging families to do this together. So, for example, if your family registered, their parents have asked me, do I have to sign up every child in my household that I want to do this? No, the family can register with one registration; the whole family has access to it. And then I know that life gets crazy. So while the content will be released over 16 weeks, families will have a whole year, 12 months, that they can work through.

So that if they, you know, are out of town or if they have a family emergency, life gets crazy, they just need more time, you have access to the materials for a whole 12 months. And then for those that want kind of a little extra support, if you can do that completely online, self-paced option of the curriculum, or you can opt in to twice-a-month Zoom calls where you can kind of do a show and tell.

Ask questions, get feedback, and that will be live with me and the other students that choose to participate in in those as well. Yeah, so.

Kody Hanner (30:28)

How fun.

Cause that makes it where they have others that are excited about the same thing they’re doing.

Jessica Clark (30:35)

Right,

right. And they’ll have a place where they can share, you know, photos of what they’re working on, you know, ask questions, get feedback. It’s really nice to be able to, you know, ask, hey, what do you think about these fabrics? Or what do you think about these colors? Or, you know, sometimes just having another person to look at what you’ve thought of and be like, yeah, I love that. That’s a great idea, kind of, you know, to have that feedback.

Kody Hanner (31:01)

Yeah, I mean there’s so many things that I do that, you know, no one in my house is excited about my Excel spreadsheet, and it really kind of bums me out, you know? Or, you know, I even spent five hours weeding our raspberries this week. Like I was just dying. We have a raspberry patch that’s, I don’t know, a hundred feet long and five feet wide.

Jessica Clark (31:27)

And

Kody Hanner (31:28)

You know, the canes haven’t been cleaned out in a couple of years, and there’s weeds growing into it. And I was like, I just wanna like make it really, really nice. And so I, you know, with all the fire stuff going on and everything, my brain was fried, and I was like, I just can’t work. Like, you know, do my normal, like sit down at my desk and work. I had to do something physical, and I, I mean, I just busted booty out there, and all the guys got home from the fire and I’m like, What do you think of the raspberries? I weeded them all, and they were like, Great.

Jessica Clark (31:58)

Woohoo.

Kody Hanner (32:01)

I think they were maybe excited that they weren’t gonna have to do it, but yeah.

Jessica Clark (32:04)

Yeah.

Kody Hanner (32:05)

And so, like, yeah, having that peer feedback and teacher feedback, I think, is really great. And even though I’m a huge proponent of homeschool, obviously, I think it is important for kids to learn together and have those opportunities. I just don’t think it has to be every day.

Jessica Clark (32:21)

Right. Yeah. And I’ve had so many moms even that have gotten so excited about the curriculum because quilting has kind of been on their bucket list of things that they want to learn. And so they’re like, can I do this with my kids? And I’m like, Absolutely. Like, what better way to learn than to learn together? And that’s one of the things I love so much about kind of the life we’re living and having the kids. Going back to what we talked about earlier, just them being

a part of our life and kind of doing all the things with us. But that also means I get to be a part of the things that they’re doing and the things that they’re learning. So they may take an interest in something that I have no clue about. And I’m like, okay, well, let’s figure it out together and let’s learn and grow in this together. And that’s

Kody Hanner (33:07)

Say you need to be humble enough to say that you don’t know how to do something and be willing to learn it.

Jessica Clark (33:12)

Absolutely.

Kody Hanner (33:12)

Absolutely. And we do that so much.

Jessica Clark (33:15)

Yeah. And for them to know it’s okay that you don’t know everything. Like that’s totally okay. But if you don’t know something, okay, well, how do we find the answer? How can we figure it out?

Kody Hanner (33:26)

If they don’t know something and rather than being willing to learn it, they like put up that wall of, “I don’t think it’s like, I don’t know how to do that,” but they feign it as, “I’m not interested in something like that.”

Jessica Clark (33:41)

Right.

Kody Hanner (33:42)

Right. And it’s okay to just say, I don’t know how to do that. Teach me.

Jessica Clark (33:46)

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And even if it’s not necessarily, you know, my cup of tea. Maybe it’s not something that I really love. But if they love it and I can be kind of there cheering them on on the sidelines. And again, as you said, having somebody that’s interested in what you’re interested in, a lot of times that goes a long way. So I don’t have to be an expert in that thing, and I don’t even have to love it, but just being there to encourage them and their learning journey is a lot of times really helpful for them.

Kody Hanner (34:20)

So how do we get your curriculum? And what do we need to be able to accomplish it?

Jessica Clark (34:27)

Yeah, so you can find the curriculum on my website. So if you go to thelarklife.com, there is a tab called Foundations and Quilting. And so you click that tab, and it goes over all of the information, kind of answers the basic questions that you might have about the course. It’ll give you an overview of what we’ll be learning for each of those 16 weeks. And then there’s a link on that page that takes you to the pay portal. You can actually set up a one-time payment, or you can set up a payment plan if things are tight and you want to make it as affordable and accessible to as many families as possible. And then once you have done that, you will get an email to create an account on your portal where you’re gonna be able to access all of the videos as they come out weekly and all the PDFs. Those will also be emailed out to people. And then when you sign up,

You get free access to two classes that I already have available that I have taught adults in the past. So there’s a sewing machine basics class that walks everybody through the basic parts of their machine, what all the things on their machine do, how to use their machine, how to troubleshoot some basic things. And then the second free bonus that you get instant access to is a beginner quilt lab where I walk you through how to make a very simple, like 36 by 36 little throw quilt. And so that kind of can give you a basic understanding and idea of what’s going on. And then as far as getting started, what you need, you’ll have, you know, the computer that you can log in and access those things. You’ll need a sewing machine with that quarter-inch foot. You can have whatever

Kody Hanner (36:18)

Sewing machine have the quarter-inch foot swapped out?

Jessica Clark (36:21)

Yeah, most any sewing machine you can buy the quarter-inch foot. You can kind of just search for it online, and they make a universal one that fits all machines. so as long as you have that foot, and then for cutting out the fabric, most like the old school way of cutting out fabric, you know, you just have your paper pattern, you trace it out, you cut it with scissors. But now,

When I cut fabric, I’m using a cutting mat and a rotary cutter. It gets much more accurate cutting.

Kody Hanner (36:56)

I have a print shop for like the publishing that we do. I want a rotary cutter so bad.

Jessica Clark (37:04)

Well, maybe this is your time to get one then. Right. Because you can multi-purpose it. so yeah, and that’s pretty much the basics. It doesn’t take a lot to get started. And again, you don’t have to have the biggest, fanciest machine. My daughter has been making all of the things that she’s been making just with a simple machine that we bought at Walmart for like a hundred dollars. So it doesn’t have to be high-end or fancy. Again, if you have a hand-me-down machine, one from a thrift store.

Those will also work fine. The biggest thing is just making sure you order that quarter-inch foot before we get started so that you’re not frustrated. You can do it without it, but you’ll be a lot less frustrated if you have that foot.

Kody Hanner (37:47)

Does anyone hand quilt anymore? Or I mean, I guess just hand, but is it

Jessica Clark (37:53)

Yeah, there are a lot of people who still hand quilt. They do not want to use a machine. So they piece by hand, they quilt the layers together by hand. So that is still a thing that happens and we’ll explore some of that, but most of what we’re doing in the course is gonna be with a machine.

Kody Hanner (38:10)

Okay. I was just curious for myself ’cause one of my things that makes me feel good at the end of the day is to maybe sit, and I’ll do cross stitch or I’ll, you know, sketch or something and that’s like my creative release at the end of the day. So

I could see myself really enjoying hand stitching where I can kinda like finally relax at the end of the day, sit in my chair, not have to be like up at a sewing machine, you know.

Jessica Clark (38:35)

Yeah, and there’s some paper piecing techniques that people do a lot of that by hand. And it’s one of those smaller things that you can just like grab and take with you if you’re gonna be sitting in the doctor’s waiting room or you have, you know, your kids’ soccer practice and you’re gonna be sitting and have some time where you can kind of pick up those things and take them, take them with you. And then again, the hand quilting, once you get all of those layers, you can quilt those. And there’s a lot of younger modern quilters that are doing really large hand stitching on their quilt so that the stitching itself is part of the decoration on the quilt. So it’s not just functional; it’s also, you know, beautiful.

Kody Hanner (39:15)

There are some young girls here in our town that make beautiful quilts, and they do some really unique things with them. And so, I mean, you don’t have to be a great-grandmother to quilt and quilt

Jessica Clark (39:28)

Yeah. And again, the sky is the limit when it comes to quilting. If you can dream it up and imagine it, you can probably figure out how to make it. And I’ve also had parents asking me, so while sewing and quilting has kind of traditionally been something that girls did. I do have boys signed up for the class. And I do think it’s important for boys to learn how to do these things, just like I think it’s important for my girls to learn how to fix machines and you know.

We all need to learn how to do all the things. Yep.

Kody Hanner (39:59)

I feel the same way. My nine-year-old son realized that my daughter and I have matching sewing machines, and he wants to know like, why he didn’t get one. Uhhuh. And why

Jessica Clark (40:07)

Why didn’t he get one, Mom?

Kody Hanner (40:09)

He was two when we bought them, but we

Jessica Clark (40:13)

That’s acceptable.

Kody Hanner (40:14)

are talking about this winter, like, even if we don’t get him his own just yet, her and I are starting to teach him how to sew. So he’s really excited about it. And you know, my husband, he’s definitely like, you know, the big manly man. But he has no problem wanting to learn those skills himself. And so it’s really fun that we can do that together. And my twenty-one-year-old, having moved back home, he’s making chicken fried steak, and you know, it’s

We’ve never really like looked at those roles that way.

Jessica Clark (40:42)

Right, right. Which is, I think, so great. ‘Cause again, I think sometimes we limit our kids. Maybe they have an interest in that thing, but they’re afraid to tell us that out loud because they already think that we’re gonna be like, no, that’s not for you.

Kody Hanner (40:56)

On a farm, everybody does everything. So

Jessica Clark (40:58)

For sure, for sure.

Kody Hanner (41:00)

Well, we’re about at the end of our time. And honestly, I just got a text message that our local power company is cutting power in

Jessica Clark (41:09)

no.

Kody Hanner (41:10)

about 14 minutes. Wow. Because that’s what started the fires last night, and we’re having another wind event. So at the end of all my episodes, I really like to ask everybody what does keep growing mean to you?

Jessica Clark (41:24)

Yeah. So for me, I think so many people kind of see life as this race where there’s a finish line that you can, like, get to the end and, like, you’ve made it. But for me, I don’t know that we ever arrive at that place. Like I think there’s always something

for us to learn, always something for us to be working on and doing. And I think even of my own grandparents and the kind of the examples that they set that they were always

working and growing and learning. And that’s something that I strive to always do myself and strive to kind of teach my kids that it’s not just a normal part of life, that we are curious, we ask questions, and then we take steps to kind of learn and figure out what that is. So I guess that’s what keeps growing is like we never let ourselves think that I’ve arrived and I’ve made it. But there’s always something more to learn and do.

Kody Hanner (42:18)

That is perfect. You know, I ask this question all the time, and I’ve loved every answer I’ve gotten. So thank you so much for coming on today and sharing about what you do. And I will make sure all the links are in the show notes, and awesome. I really encourage everybody to go check out what Jessica’s doing and teach your kids some lost arts.

Jessica Clark (42:43)

Yes. Yeah. Thank you so much.