Crafting with the Kids

The half term holidays have hijacked my sewing time completely!  It's been a whirl wind of a week.  However, my kids have gone back to school today and I've just had the pleasurable company of my 2 nieces (Aged 8 and 10.).  The good new is ... they have not yet overdosed on crafting and even asked to "Do something fun!" ..Ahh, I do love them.

So, we decided to make a garland of Christmas trees.  
We made a template ... just a big triangle but we understood the necessity for similar sizes if the end result was not going to look a total mess.

The girls chose a variety of fabrics .. with much oohing and ahhing ( It was music to my ears.)
Then drew around the template and used my best fabric scissors to cut out their shapes.  



After some carefully demonstrated sewing the girls took turns to sew their trees together inside out.  They trimmed the corners and turned their triangles back the correct way.  Then the tree trunks were added.

Getting the corners poked out was tricky and the girls nimble fingers were just perfect for getting the stuffing in perfectly.

After making a few with contrasting fabrics they wanted to play with the different stitches on the machine.  So they had a go.  Some of the stitches were more successful than others because the fabric got caught in the feed dogs at times.  However, it was all part of the learning curve.

 I think they have done a fantastic job of making the trees for their 1st Christmas garland.