During the Christmas break I spent some time hand quilting small wholecloth quilts. It was mostly so I could do something creative while still spending time with my family when we were all at home. My daughter observed this and expressed her desire to try hand quilting as well. I was a bit hesitant at first. Did I really want to give her a needle to poke at things? She kept asking though.
I came up with a solution. I still had some embroidery cloth that already has this grid with holes in it and I put it in an embroidery frame. I gave her a blunt needle, tied a knot in some perle 8 cotton thread, tied the thread to the eye of the needle (because who wants to rethread a needle every 5 seconds?) and let her do what she wanted. She looooooooved it. Except that she didn’t feel that she was doing exactly the same thing as I was doing since I was stitching a quilt sandwich and her embroidery cloth didn’t quite look the same. She also wanted to make a quilt.
So, I buckled and gave her a quilt sandwich next. I had to give her a slightly sharper needle so she could pull it through the fabric and batting and gladly this worked out. No holes were poked in anything but the quilt sandwich. When she finished quilting, she chose fabrics for the binding and I attached it.
She is so proud of her first quilt! I am so happy that I gave in and let her do some real sewing.
I found the embroidery frame super helpful in this process. My daughter sometimes makes huge stitches and pulls quite strongly on the thread. When we tried sewing without the frame, she would pull the fabric into wrinkles. With the frame this was not a problem at all, the fabric remained smooth and the stitches look fine.
I am curious to see what else she will make!
She’s clearly destined for lots of beautiful free-form patchwork and quilting! I wonder where that comes from….
She had obviously clearly been observing what I was doing and it was very fun to see how much she enjoyed this. She spent hours on this piece.
Reassuring when a young one can spend a long time devoted to a project. The focus and observational skills will enable her to accomplish whatever she chooses in the future. Good job, mom!
Her quiltet is very cute.
Thank you! Yes, it surprised me how long she was able to stay focused. She really liked it and I think it also helped that she wanted to use all 12 colours in the box of Perle 8 thread that I have in her quilt!
slim van dat knoopje aan het eind van de naald 🙂
Dank je! Dat helpt echt enorm. Kan ze gewoon lekker bezig zijn met steekjes maken.
Oh what a treasure. Your daughter’s first quilt is a masterpiece and you get ten out of ten for patience and ingenuity
Haha! This project surprisingly hardly required any patience.
Love how you are fostering such creativity at an early age!
Thank you! I am mostly just following her lead in what she wants to learn.