We are having kids stay with us for a few days since their Mother who is in the Army needed to go to the field. So the kids were interested in learning how to embroider! I took some muslin and a water erasable pen and drew some designs for them to stitch in. I let them each use a chenille needle and some size 5 perle cotten thread which is the perfect learning size for them and taught them how to do the quilter's knot and how to do the backstitch. Also a few other stitches I showed were french knots and lazy daisy's.
Here's Alece's work I drew a flower with leaves for her and wrote her name. She's 6 years old! I need to coach her continually but she's getting it very well! Also for her I drew in marks of where to poke the needle for the next stitch that's what all the little lines around the drawing are, that helped her a LOT.
This is Ashe'a's work she's 10 years old. Ashe'a took off with it and I only needed to show her how to do a stitch about twice and she had it down! I'm so impressed! She did have some difficulty with the lazy daisy's but I think that's more on my part of teaching it since I showed her the sewing method in the hoop...not a good idea. Ashe'a really loves embroidery and is very excited about it, I think she will be able to embroider on her own.
Here is Te'an's work I let him draw his own design since he is older (12) and is a boy, didn't want to make him something girly! LOL I ran out of smaller hoops so he ended up using my small spring-form hoop...not the best type of hoop for a kid to learn on.I want to stop by WalMart this afternoon and pick up a bag of the cheep crafting perle threads that has a ton of colors and a few hoops that they can take home with them.
Aren't they all doing wonderful?!! I'm also encouraging them to embroider some clothes too, I think that would encourage future embroidering and being able to show their work to others.
3 comments:
Melissa, you're off to a great teaching start and the kids are doing well. You were very wise to let Te'an design his own. Seeing what he can do will also encourage the girls toward 'designing' ... even the littlest when she sees what big brother and sister are doing! Good job!
What a great memory they will have and I hope that they will continue to stitch or one day pick it back up. I remember a gal in my PE class in junior high who did embroidery on her PE outfit collar and I was so emvious cuz I thought it was so pretty. =)
I'm really glad to see you started them off in a hoop Melissa. My experience is that kids have difficulty holding the fabric to stitch when they are just learning, so having a hoop to hold is really helpful. The fabric doesn't need to be drum tight, just held between the rings. Good on you, hope they continue at home. And coloured perle threads are definately the thing. Bravo!!
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