• Demand for kids' sewing and knitting kits has soared by nearly 500 per cent in last year

  • Kids' sewing machine was Tesco top seller at Christmas

  • Trend directly linked to popularity of BBC's Great British Sewing Bee

The centuries old craft of sewing and knitting has become the UK's hottest hobby trend for children.

In the last year demand for sewing and knitting pattern kits aimed at children have rocketed by nearly 500 per cent at Tesco.

And a kids' mini sewing machine is so popular that it has become one of the supermarket's top selling children's items.

The boom has been sparked by the huge popularity of BBC's The Great British Sewing Bee series which has done for needlecraft what The Great British Bake off did for baking as well as a growing trend for arts and crafts aimed at children.

Tesco arts and crafts buyer Carolina Amaya said: 'It's great to see youngsters becoming interested in sewing and knitting as a hobby as both can really help children use their creativity.

'Demand is growing so fast that in the last year we have more than doubled the number of children's sewing or knitting kits that we stock.

'The trend has been inspired by the BBC's The Great British Sewing Bee series which has run for the last three years.

'But it has also grown out of a general children's revival for arts and crafts such as 'make and play' kits which has been gathering pace over the last few years.'

Until the 1980s many youngsters growing up during the golden era of BBC's Blue Peter programme would occupy themselves by making playthings out of household objects.

However, the 'make and play' era began to fall away with the arrival of other distractions such as computer games and all day children's TV.

But now sales of arts and crafts staples such as finger puppets, stencil sets, felt and badge making kits as well as painting sets for youngsters and bead craft are soaring.

And they've helped boost the value of the UK arts and crafts market in 2015 to £154million (NPD data).

ENDS

Note to editors:

Tesco's top 5 selling children's sewing and knitting kits are as follows:

  1. Sew Cool Sewing Studio

  2. Knits Cool Knitting Studio

  3. Style Me Up Easy Knit

  4. Cra-Z-Nitz Ultimate Design Set

  5. Sew Cool Character Set

For more information please contact the Tesco Press Office on
01707 918 701
We are a team of 480,000 in 11 markets dedicated to serving shoppers a little better every day.

Tesco plc issued this content on 08 February 2016 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 08 February 2016 15:28:07 UTC

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