Part of my birthday present to R this year – two sewing books! I bought these two books after reading the rave reviews on Amazon. I know I can teach her myself, but after seeing the preview of the books, I thought it will really help if she could read up the basics before we actually had time to sew. During the school term there is hardly any time for sewing, so despite her wanting to jump straight in, she had to wait till the school holidays came around.
So we had a one week break last week. It’s just a one week break but she’s already done two projects.
Secret message pillow
Coin Saver
She cut the patterns out herself, traced it on the fabric and cut it out and sewed it all by herself. She even asked me if the seam allowances were included! The book didn’t say, so I am assuming they were trying to keep things simple for kids. In any case, most US sewing books tend to include seam allowances.
Being paranoid, I’m still supervising her on the machine since she has a tendency to put her fingers real close to the needle. I think she feels like there is more control over the fabric, but I’m trying to change that habit because trying to move the fabric instead of guiding it through can lead to uneven stitches. After completing the cushion project, she is now quite good at pivoting around corners. The book called for an ugly whip stitch to sew up the opening for the cushion, but I taught her how to blind stitch and it looked so much better. The second project called for gluing on the velcro pieces, which I know will never hold. So I made her sew them on. Then she had to stitch around the circle and I thought it was pretty well done! I think the book includes some short cuts so that younger children will be able to complete the projects independently, so if your child is older, you can introduce more advance techniques based on his or her ability.
Next up is a skirt! The book used a trapezium shape for an A-line skirt which I thought is quite a frustrating shape to sew with. First of all, due to the widening of the side seams, the top casing can never be sewn flat properly. It would have been much better to use a simple rectangle shape to make a gathered skirt and teach them how to insert the elastic. I am thinking of scrapping the pattern altogether and using two rectangle pieces instead because she is quite disheartened after sewing how the fabric keeps bunching up. In fact, the skirt project has stalled. I hope we will have time to finish it up next weekend!
More pictures to come soon when more projects are done.
