When Liita Forsyth first opened The Little Bits Workshop in River Forest in 2010, she had big ideas to teach kids to use their hands to create. She had no idea how enthusiastically the community would embrace her.
“We’ve come a long way- from ten students a week to one hundred. We started out focused on upcycling and have expanded into a skill-based workshop for teaching traditional skills like sewing, knitting, fiber and paper arts, and even building small pieces of furniture.”
Forsyth’s interest in teaching hands-on skills to children was sparked when she and her husband took a trip to Russia in 2001 and worked with children at a summer camp. “The kids were starved to make things. Their excitement was very contagious. I came home determined to open a studio, and finally in 2010, the dream came true when we opened The Little Bits Workshop.”
In today’s technology-driven world Forsyth has found that many parents are looking for an alternative to all the electronic devices that waste time and creative energy. Parents don’t want their children sitting around on their iPads or watching TV.
“Everything is so electronic that the pendulum is adjusting. People want to use their hands, not just their thumbs.”
From parents looking for their children to learn the sewing skills that might have skipped a generation, to kids looking for an outlet for their need to create, she finds that her camps and classes fill up quickly.
Forsyth partners with Oak Park schools for after-school programs, with the Oak Park Education Foundation for BASE camps and with the Trailside Museum in River Forest for this year’s MakerNature Camp. From knitting camps, to Camp Runway and the Good Guerilla Artist Camp, she makes sure that kids spend a good deal of the class outdoors.
“Kids want to be outdoors and use their hands to create. There are not a lot of fine motor, skill-based classes out there. We have been filling a niche. Many parents are not even able to pass hand skills down to their kids anymore, so we are standing in the gap.”
Forsyth also offers very popular birthday parties at her workshop which are centered on handcrafting a small item. One of her most requested birthday party projects is The Little Bits Cottage originally created inside cigar boxes and furnished with repurposed materials. After a feature in Green Craft Magazine there was too much demand and not enough cigar boxes. With the help of local dad, Steve Lefko, she developed a cottage kit using a laser cut cottage rooms and instructions on how to repurpose items from corks to bottle caps in the spirit of the Borrowers. She estimates that over 600 local children have built her Little Bits Cottages.
Forsyth emphasizes that her classes are about empowering kids to make projects they are proud of. “We design projects that do not get thrown away. Whether it’s clothing, toys, a tool, or something really sentimental, our projects are keepers. We don’t make crafts from paper plates and construction paper. And we don’t mass produce anything, but we teach the masses to produce and to enjoy the creative process.”
For more information on summer camps, after school classes and birthday parties, visit www.thelittlebitsworkshop.com or call (630) 309-1606.