Volunteer instructor Mary Jo Lakin stitches a fix Tuesday, July 23, at the North Alabama Agriplex while camp participant Emma Blackmon, seated, mans the sewing machine.

School doesn’t resume until next month for local students, but that doesn’t mean class isn’t in session all summer long at the North Alabama Agriplex.

On Tuesday, the sound of sewing machines lent a pleasant background hum to the buzz of learning activity, as more than than a dozen area kids ages eight to eighteen took part in the Agriplex’s advanced sewing camp.

Led by volunteer teacher Kathy Lee and a handful of adult volunteer peers, the camp stitches together lessons that build on the Agriplex’s beginner sewing program — a course whose skills many of Tuesday’s “Sewing Camp 102” students had already aced. Agriplex director Rachel Dawsey said support for both programs has been robust: “We’ve got a teacher-to-student ration of about two students for every instructor,” she said.

This week’s sewing camp is just part of the Agriplex’s larger slate of summertime offerings, which teach DIY skills to area kids while going hands-on with heritage skills taught through the interpretive lens of local history.

Visit agriplex.org to find a full slate of upcoming courses for both children and adults (as well as for both beginners and the experienced), and watch for a full listing of the nonprofit’s August events lineup in an upcoming edition of The Times.