 For some time now, 5 year old Laurel has been begging to sew.  Yesterday, with Christmas behind us, we finally had a little free time.
Next week she will be going to our family cabin in the mountains of North Carolina so we thought a polar fleece scarf would be useful. She serged the 8″ x 50″ edges with a three-thread wide stitch. This was her first experience with my fabulous Babylock Evolve serger and she took to it like a duck to water. She loved the speed and ease of control.
For many years, I taught sewing to children. There are so many things that I learned about teaching skills and generating enthusiasm. One of the most important considerations is selection of the project, which should be quick and easy, and, in my opinion, foolproof. An earnest junior sewist cannot be allowed to fail. So the scarf seemed to be a safe choice.
Secondly, the child must have some input, as little as selecting the color of the fabric or as much as pattern, fabric, thread and embroidery design. Laurel chose the pink polar fleece, the variegated thread–they ALL love variegated thread– and the snowflake design which combines a large snowflake from Anita Goodesign’s Jolly Holiday 3 and three smaller flakes from Amazing Designs Christmas Magic NZ. She even participated in combining them in BuzzEdit2. Kids are so computer savvy, even at 5, that they view a program with expectation of success and understanding.
Using her little Brother 300SE, she embroidered the snowflakes on both ends of her scarf.
Laurel certainly has plenty of enthusiasm. Before next week, she would like to make herself a matching hat and mittens, as well as a similar 3-piece set in blue for her brother. With all that sewing in addition to the 3 R’s, it’s going to be a hectic week in our little homeschool classroom.
