Sewing with Anne – Sew Bittersweet Designs

Make Your Own Sewing Kits – A Tutorial

11 Comments / Sewing with Anne, tutorial / By Melissa Dunworth

This past summer I bought Anne a very simple sewing kit at JoAnns. It had a felt cat shape set and a felt heart shape set pre-cut and punched, it also had some fluff, decorations, a plastic needle and yarn for sewing.

The day after she turned 4 we decided it was time to start learning to sew. She whipped up the 2 patterns in no time and was begging to do more.

She made her cat first and then she quickly moved on to the heart.

As I knew she wanted to sew more, I figured I needed a more economical way to make that happen without constantly investing in sewing kits.

You will need the following supplies:

Felt (lots of colors)
A Leather Punch (I tried a paper hole punch too and the one I bought failed to even punch paper – I moved to the leather punch after a recommendation from a friend)Fluff
A child friendly needle (we are using the one from our original kit)
Yarn
Optional: decorations – bling those creations out!

Start with felt. I have no idea how I ended up with such a huge collection and selection of felt, but WOOHOO because we not have lots of options to get creative!

Next cut out a shape you want to sew. Fold the felt on itself so you cut out 2 identical pieces at once. Then grab your punch. I use mine on the 2.5 mm setting. I find it is the perfect sized hole for the small needles and small hands.

You will want to evenly space your holes around the shape. Anne wanted a blue stocking, we will likely be sewing this one after nap today. One thing to note is that the punch can be very difficult to use if you have weak hands like I do (darn RA!), you can either take lots of breaks or simply find someone with stronger hands to do the punching. My husband punched the star below for me and I marked each punch spot with a black sharpie for him.

The only thing I didn’t already own when I decided to make these kits was the leather punch. I was able to get one at Michaels using a 40% off coupon for $7.99. Totally worth the investment. Mine is an ArtMinds Leather Punch with 6 adjustable hole sizes.

This is not a sponsored post, just telling you which product has worked for me.

Anne and I are having so much fun sewing together. She is dieing to get her hands on one of my machines but she is still a couple years off from that, in the mean time, this is making her pretty happy!

Anne’s Sewing Corner

13 Comments / Sewing with Anne / By Melissa Dunworth

Every once in awhile I hear the question, “how do you entertain your child while you sew?” Truth be told, I don’t. I sew during nap time so she is happily entertained by her dreams. That being said, she does spend some quality time in the sewing room with me when I’m doing things that don’t involve my sewing machine. Cutting, pressing, designing, etc.

In fact, here she in my sewing room on Tuesday. (She asked me to take this picture and I just snapped – guess I should have cleaned up a bit first – my room looks like a hot mess!) When she is in my sewing room, naturally she wants to play with everything and that just isn’t possible as some sewing tools are just not safe for little hands, so what I have done is create a space in my sewing room that belongs solely to Anne and I have let her fill it with some of her favorite sewing related things.

The contents of the basket change rather frequently but these are her staples. She also occasionally brings in other things from around the house.

As you can see there is fabric, a quilt, a measuring tape, a pin cushion, and even a pressing ham! She loves to draw so she has her very own set of colored pencils. I use color pencils when I am drawing out new designs and she wanted her own set so she could get in on the action.

These are Anne’s jars, they are probably her favorite things in the sewing room. She fills them with buttons, pencils, and little odds and ends. They have entertained her ceaselessly for hours and hours on end.

The best part about having her in my sewing room and letting her use certain tools now, is that I hope she will be comfortable in there with me in a few years when she is old enough to get behind the machine with me.

Happy Sewing and Entertaining!