Sewing is not known as the most social of hobbies.
It is generally done alone, in your home, with only your sewing machines for company. But there are tremendous benefits to joining a sewing group, including bonding with others who have the same passion for sewing and contributing to community projects and charities as a group. But you’re probably still wondering: how can I find sewing groups near me?
The best way to find a sewing group near you is probably by asking someone at your local fabric store or haberdashery. Also, try to keep your eye on local newspapers since sewing groups often participate in charity events. You can check online, too, particularly on sites like Facebook and Meetup.
No matter your sewing skill level, there is always a use for joining a sewing group. Whether it’s to learn more from other sewers, share tips and tricks, or even just socialize, sewing groups can be a great way to live out your hobby passionately.
Let’s look at the different ways to find and join a sewing group near you.
How To Find A Sewing Group Through Your Community
There are sewing groups everywhere. Wherever there’s civilization, there will be a sewing group, usually in a suburban area. But what if you’re new to the neighborhood or to sewing? How can you find one of these groups? Don’t fret; it’s simple.
Check Your Local Fabric Store Or Haberdashery
One thing that all sewers have in common is that they need something to sew with. Fabrics, buttons, ribbons, and trimmings are all things that every sewer will often look for.
These are mostly found at fabric stores and haberdasheries. Since folks who hang out at these places all share the same passion, these are the best places to get the information you need.
You can go about this process in three ways:
1. Look For An Ad
Sometimes, there will be an advertisement or notice at the haberdashery or fabric store inviting anyone who’s interested in joining a local sewing group. This is not necessarily a common occurrence, but it occasionally happens, especially if only two or three people so far want to start a sewing group.
Look out for an ad like this the next time you go to the haberdashery. Maybe you’ll be in luck!
2. Ask Other Customers
This is an excellent option for the social butterflies! It’s an opportunity to mingle and get to know new people. When you go to the haberdashery or fabric store, don’t just shop and leave. Hang around and see who shows up. You can usually identify when someone is particularly passionate about sewing by how they look at different things.
Now talk to some of them. Get to know them, and ask them if they know of any sewing groups in the area.
The chances are that, if you repeat this often enough, you’ll find someone who’s either in a sewing group, knows someone who’s in a sewing group, or who’s been thinking of starting a sewing group.
It’s also a great way to meet other people who have their own careers involving sewing, or maybe even their own home businesses.
3. Ask The Staff Or Owners
Anyone who works in the shop will probably know many (if not all) of the regular customers. They will often have talked to them or overheard conversations between different customers. These conversations are often a goldmine of information about sewing groups in your area.
Asking the staff is probably the easiest way to find information, especially in a smaller, tightly-knit community. If there’s more than one staff member, ask them all. Try as many different people as you can, and the chances are that you will find what you’re looking for.
Check Your Local Newspapers
When we say “local newspapers,” we mean very local.
Many towns, cities, or suburbs have newspapers that are focused on that particular region rather than a greater metropolitan area or state. These local newspapers are so focused on things that happen locally that you can usually find pieces of information in them that you wouldn’t usually have access to.
One popular part of any local newspaper is the Classifieds section.
People love to advertise in these sections since they know the ad will only be seen by local people, making it easier to sell their products or services. Some of these classifieds offer free ads to local clubs or not-for-profit groups. This makes the Classifieds section a perfect place to advertise a local sewing group.
Sewing groups that advertise in the Classifieds section of a local newspaper are usually the ones that are just starting out, or even where one person decided it’s time to start a group and is now advertising to find others that can join.
Established sewing groups generally won’t advertise in newspapers, and many of them are not really looking for new members (though they probably wouldn’t say no if someone asked to join them). But often, the best way to find sewing groups in your local newspaper isn’t in the Classifieds section but through the local news.
Sewing groups often participate in charity events. Many of these groups will sew clothing items for orphanages or warm things for the homeless during winter. Local newspapers usually cover these charity events as “feel-good” stories to show how great the local community is. But for you, this is valuable information about a local sewing group that you can join.
Sometimes, the newspaper article will give the contact details of someone who can be contacted for more information. This is what you’re looking for. But if the newspaper didn’t provide that info, don’t hesitate to contact the newspaper directly.
They may be hesitant to give you information, but at the very least, they should be willing to share your information with someone in the group.
How To Find A Sewing Group Online
The methods we’ve discussed are probably the easiest and most efficient ways to find a sewing group near you, but they are not the only ways.
Everything is online these days. Even things that you would never have thought would have an online presence will have either a website, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, or all three. This makes it easy to find just about anything you want to see if you know where to look.
You can also do a lot of great networking through the communities that built in to online sewing classes.
Sewing Groups On Facebook
People create and join Facebook groups dedicated to almost every topic under the sun, and sewing is no exception. Searching on Facebook for the term “sewing” spews out thousands of results. One nice thing about these search results is that the first few will generally be from your vicinity, which already helps a lot.
However, there are some international Facebook groups that are dedicated to sewing that could also help. The idea is to join these groups, then either post on them asking for sewing groups near you or go through the posts already on there to see if there’s something that draws your attention.
Obviously, the more people there are in a group, the more quickly you will find someone with the information you need. Some of the larger international groups are:
- Pattern Drafting and Sewing for Beginners – Approximately 80,600 members. Focused in particular on drafting sewing patterns.
- A group simply called “Sewing” – More than 184,000 members.
- Another group, also called Pattern Drafting & Sewing for Beginners – More than 460,000 members.
Joining these Facebook groups can be incredibly valuable, but they should never replace a proper, in-person sewing group. The social interaction adds immense value to your hobby and your ability to learn new skills, and that is something that Facebook will never truly be able to replace.
Meetup
Meetup is a dynamic website with a simple premise: allowing people to find groups of like-minded people. Anyone who starts a club, team, or group can put the information about that group on Meetup, free of charge. Users can then go to meetup.com and search for the topic that they are interested in, after which Meetup will present them with a list of options in their area.
Searching the Meetup website for the simple word “sewing,” for example, shows that more than 200,000 Meetup members are interested in the topic.
The Meetup search results also include a list of sewing, knitting, or craft groups that are already established and active in their local communities.
Once you’ve found a group that you’d like to join, Meetup should give you contact details or some other way to get in contact with the organizers of the group.
A Simple Google Search
This option might seem too obvious to be effective, but strangely, it could work. Not because local sewing groups advertise on Google or make their own websites; they generally don’t. But Google search results include a few things that could be of help:
1. Old News Articles
The local newspaper recommendation from earlier deals with current information, and you will have to wait for each new edition in the hopes that you could find something. Meanwhile, most newspapers (even smaller local ones) tend to archive their articles on the web, and these articles are searchable through Google.
A simple Google search could show you old newspaper articles that mentioned sewing groups near you, after which you can then get more information from the newspaper’s offices.
2. Regional Sewing Communities
Some countries, states, or cities have regional communities or campaigns to promote hobbies like sewing. For example, an entire website called “Keep Britain Sewing” is dedicated to promoting sewing as a hobby (and a career) in the United Kingdom. This website has a list of sewing groups around the UK.
Similar groups exist for different countries, states, and geographical locations, not just the UK. Searching Google will reveal some interesting things, and you just might be able to find a sewing group in the last place you thought you would: on Google.
Our Verdict On Sewing Groups
There you go; some simple but effective ways to find a sewing group near you.
Of course, sometimes the answer is simpler, like just talking to your friends and acquaintances, neighbors, or members of other organizations you are a part of.
But if all of that fails, and you are the only one in your circle of influence who likes to sew, you now know how you can find some new friends.