Sewing Lessons at Grammas

We had sewing lessons at Gramma’s house last weekend. I invited only Grace, 4 yrs old, and Anne, 5 yrs old, to come because having lots of little ones around can be dangerous with needles, pins and scissors. Anne has sewn with me before, but this was Graces first time. We had another attendee too; Ryan who is 11 yrs old. He was visiting Anne’s family and thought he would come and do art while the girls were sewing, but right away he asked to sew too; he thought it looked fun.

I gave him a piece of cloth and showed him some basics; threading a needle, tying the thread, a running stitch. He quickly mastered it all and asked for more instructions. I was not prepared for a project for him but soon we found something he would like to make; a holder for his ipod. I have a stocked sewing room and we picked out fabric for it. Here is were I found the instructions for the ipod holder. It seemed simple enough so we proceeded. I watched him do a practice run on the sewing machine, and he was great at it, so I watched as he made his holder.

And here is his finished project! We put a hook and loop closure on it and belt loops on the back too. He was so happy with it and he wants to come back for more lessons.

Anne wanted to make another hair accessory as a present for yet another friend, and she quickly finished. Then she asked to do something else using a technique like Grace’s project. She made a small heart, and glued a picture of her family on it.

Grace is not into girlie stuff and her favorite color is red. She loves dinosaurs, and that is what I picked for her very first lesson. This is the first time Grace has used a needle and she did an excellent job! We used a 2 ¼ inch steel yarn needle; it’s thick and not as sharp as a regular needle. As young as she is and her first time sewing, I didn’t want her to hurt herself with a regular needle. I had her color a dinosaur I had outlined onto a piece of loosely woven cloth. (fabric with a loose weave works great for beginners, starting with yarn instead of thread)

We used two separate pieces of fabric and she colored both. I heat set the crayon colored fabric with my iron, making sure to cover my ironing board and the fabric with paper to protect both surfaces from melting crayon.

With front and back pieces of fabric together, design side out, I slipped it into a hoop. I used a marker to make dots where she should put her needle in. I turned the hoop and fabric over and marked again the barely visible dots on the back side.

I showed her how to put her needle into a dot and pull it tight, but not too tight. Then how to hold the base of the needle where the yarn is so it won’t pull out of the needle while pulling it through the fabric.

She tried so hard to do it just right; look at that concentration! When she was tired of sewing, I took the project to the sewing machine and did a zigzag stitch around it leaving an opening for stuffing. I showed her how to stuff her dinosaur, pushing the small bits of stuffing all the way down using a pencil. When it was full I stitched it close on the sewing machine.

We had such a good time and the kids gained self confidence, and learned some valuable skills. I know I can't wait to do this again!

There is a book that has a project very similar to the dinosaur project that Grace made, it's titled Sewing School. It has great projects for boys as well as girls, and includes patterns enclosed in the back of the book. Look for it under 'Shop My Amazon Store.'