Stitching with kids

I mentioned that I was working on little sewing projects with my nieces.  They love sewing!  I have 2 nieces that are really getting into it.  I have been creating simple little project for these two to make for awhile now.  Last year (or was it the year before?) we made little peeps and just some other little free form projects with felt and yarn.  I believe one made a heart and the other made a little pouch that her mom uses at the store.  I wish I would have taken pictures of these to share with you.  Basically when sewing with children, start with projects that are made up of simple shapes and that are 2D.  You want something that all they have to do is stitch a front onto a back.  After they master that, then you can get a little fancier.



For the peeps, we used Dana's (of MADE) cute little peep pattern.

Source: dana-made-it.com via Christina on Pinterest

Aren't those buntings adorable?  We just made one stuffed peep each.  We just traced it onto felt 2 times, and stitched them together using a running stitch with yarn and stuffing it with poly-fil.  We did it so that the yarn was visible because I wanted them to be able to see their beautiful stitches.  I added a ribbon hanger so that they could display their projects.

Meet one of our peeps! 

(I should add I punched little holes so that she knew where to stitch)

This summer my nieces were going through my little softies books oohing and ahhing at all the cute little creatures.  One of them asked if she cold help me make one.  That is when I knew she was still interested in sewing.  So my 2 little nieces and I looked through my books and tried to pick a project that they could do.  Of course, the first thing they want to to is this 23 piece kangaroo with a removable joey finger puppet!  I explained how much work that would be and that maybe someday we could try it but for now maybe we should stick with something a bit more 2D.  We finally decided on the Arno Cat which comes from this awesome little book:

Softies Only a Mother Could Love: Lovable Friends for You to Sew, Knit, or Crochet

The Arno Cat pattern was created by Suzie Fry and she blogs over HERE.  Again all we did was trace the basic pattern on to felt.  I may have helped a bit with the faces, but they did everything else.  pretty cute, huh?

After we finished these guys up, we started planning out our next project, which we will hopefully finish up over Thanksgiving when the creator of the purple cat and the rest of her family come down for the holiday.  (The creator of the pink one is local, so she's ready now!).  Let's just say I am very impressed with the creativity that is taking place with this one.  I will definitely share the finished projects later!

~Christina