Teaching others

Good afternoon!! I hope we all had a wonderful weekend! Yes I know it's Tuesday, but it was a long weekend here in Aus, so I had yesterday off and am still in the weekend spirit.

Do you remember how I made those cute little sewing kits for Christmas presents?

Well I think I said at the time, that I have never had a present so well received.  The girls seemed genuinely excited to try this new crafty endeavour.  However, neither of the girls had really done any sewing before, and asked begged suggested that I host a sewing day and they could learn how to make themselves a quilt.

Well, yesterday, I cleared some space in my sewing room and Emma and I got to stitching.

The trick, of course, being... I don't really know what I'm doing with paper piecing...  I've only ever made 1 thing, and that took me forever and I honestly have no idea if I was doing it right.  So there's a very good chance I have taught Emma completely the wrong things

I was thinking pillow cases (cushion sized pillow cases) as something fun, and bright and achievable.  Emma wants to make herself a quilt. Yay that I have brought another into the quilting fold (I feel like I'm leading them to the dark side or something when I say this - Come with me, little girl... You will loooove it... Pretty fabric for a pretty girl...*creepy grin and twiddling of witchy fingers )

Come closer to the fabric... Touch it, my pretty.

So yes, very exciting that they want to play fabric with me, but oh, my, have I set the expectations too high???  I mean a hand sewn hexagon quilt for your first ever foray into sewing... :-/

Emma was my first experiment with teaching quilting (Kerry was spending time with her hubby, so missed out. She's already made me book in another day for her to do the sewing too).  Em brought all her supplies and we went through some options.  Flowers. Lines. Random patchy sewy goodness... She chose the later.  We talked about how the whole process comes together, from cutting to stitching, basting, quilting and binding. I was pulling things out my WIP pile to show her what things looked like at various stages... I definitely overwhelmed her.

Then we went right back to the beginning. Cutting and basting a hexagon.

I chose to keep it simple and go with glue basting.  I know that basting-basting is cool, but I wanted her to be able to do this at home by herself, so simple and then if she wants to do fancy stuff later she can.

Next: How to sew a whipstitch.  I don't think I did as well explaining this step.  It's a bit confusing, and the only way to really get it, is to keep doing it and then, before you know it, you have pretty little invisible stitches.

Emma and I happily pottered away for the afternoon.  In her sewing kit I had given her big scissors for cutting her fabric, but to make sure she had the supplies she needed and didn't get bored when I sent her home, I used my rotary cutter to make some 5" squares and then started basting them while she sewed.  I figure once she is hooked on her project the cutting and basting won't be a problem, but if I made her spend an hour cutting out fabric and then basting cardboard, she may abandon this hobby before it's even started.

I didn't take any photos of the basted hexies, but this is the colour palette and Em is very excited about her rainbow quilt. 

 

So excited that she came in to work today and told me that she got home and kept right on stitching!  She is soooooo excited that she told me that she already knows what her plan is for her next quilt :-) I love it!! I will spread this quilting bug until everyone I know is infected :-P

 

Funny story... Emma was stitching her hexies together in front of her partner and he looked at them and said "it doesn't look like it'll be very comfortable. Do we really want a blanket made out of cardboard?" Hee hee hee. He thought we were going to sew all the cardboard in and make him sleep under it. I shouldn't laugh. But I think it's adorable.

 

Happy stitching everybody!

 

E xx

 

 

By the way!!  Did I ever tell you, that I won a prize for these sewing kits!!  I entered them in to a competition over at kelliotmagic and my name came out of the hat!!  I never win things!!  So to get this gorgeous bundle of Joel Dewberry makes my heart sing :-) There are some seriously gorgeous prints in this line.  And such yummy purples.  I have no idea what to make with it, but I don't want to put it away! Thanks, Kelly!!

 

Photo from  kelliotmagic