Pillow talk!

Ahhh school holidays!
A chance to spend time with just one child at a time - love it!

When we were browsing in a fabric shop recently a lady asked the girls if their mum had taught them to sew, and their response was along the lines of "not really, she usually just does it herself!".

In my defence;
They often ask a few minutes before dinner/bath/bed/school/lunch time
I find it a bit much to have six small hands to entertain with a sewing project - and it doesn't feel like fun then, it feels like a military exercise

So anyway - I decided they would each have a sewing day while we were at home.

Miss L started and chose to make a patchwork cushion.
Now before all you clever quilty types fall off your chairs at the sight of me doing something even remotely like quilting, let me stress it was her idea!!

She chose a series of charm squares, mostly from the City Weekend range by Leisl Gibson, arranged them in a pink combo and a blue combo for the two sides of her reversible cushion and then I showed her how to pin them together.

Not all her seams were straight but it is all part of learning I figure!

From there we sewed them into rows then sewed the rows into blocks, pressing all our seams open as we went.

We put the two blocks right sides together, traced the heart template onto one side and pinned the two layers together.

From there she used the edgestitching foot of my machine to 'trace' the line and carefully sewed on the line all the way around, just leaving a turning gap.

She didn't even need my help to stitch the opening closed...

Turn and stuff and then carefully hand stitch the opening closed... Ta da a new cushion that she has gone to bed cuddling the past two nights.

She did so much of the work totally by herself - I assisted a little and pressed the seams open, but not much more than that really.
It made me realise how very capable my little girl has become, how much she has grown this year, a happy/sad moment.

Her reversible cushion, pink and her favourite side, the blue side.

Miss G decided she too wanted to make a cushion, but a cloud shaped one.

Together we drew a cloud then she used fabric crayons to draw on a face, complete with blonde hair ("like me" she says), a hair bow and teeth, of course!

Both of us concentrating hard while she did the handstitching

Next she chose some white fluffy fabric with silver threads through it for the back lay the two right sides together and we sewed.
Miss G was content to do the 'pedal' with me steering the fabric through, whereas her sister did all the sewing by herself - taking care to turn the work every few stitches when she was on the curves.

A new bedtime friend with a toothy grin - Claudia the cloud!

Things that made these projects easier for the girls:
Height adjustment made to the foot pedal - it's sitting on a box of elastic!
If they can easily reach it they can better control the sewing.

Fancy new speed adjustment.
I slowed the maximum possible speed of the machine down so they wouldn't accidentally sew too fast, with theirs or my fingers in the way!

By using the edgestitching foot she was easily able to follow the outline - she just carefully kept the foot on the line - it worked brilliantly.

Highly technical "foot pedal on a box" and see the 'blade' of the edgestitching foot - an excellent guide

I set the presser foot so that each time they stopped sewing it lifted up and enabled the girls to adjust their fabric to turn coroner or to get back on line if they were a little off.

All in all I had a really enjoyable time and am looking forward to making a new ballet tote bag with Miss A tomorrow.

The only criticism of our projects from 'the guy who lives here'??
I am teaching them to sew on the sewing machine equivalent of a Porche and from here the only way is down!!