Sewing with Grandma

Welcome to Sewing with Grandma.

This site is about

• Relationship
• Creativity
• Learning to sew

Did your child use training wheels when learning to ride a bike?

Any grandma, mom, or other adult friend with minimal sewing skills can provide this kind of support for a child learning to sew. I call it side-by-side sewing.

Ready, set, sew!

Several of my after-school program kids in grades 2-4 have been enjoying hand sewing felt dolls and clothes. We used patterns from My First Doll Book for the doll shapes and clothing. The book uses the overcast stitch for the edges, and yarn for the hair. While some of the kids used these ideas, others wanted to glue on craft store curly doll hair and sew the front to back with a running stitch or blanket stitch. I like the blanket stitch on my own dolls, since it gives a nice finished edge.

When kids start using a sewing machine, they like to experiment with all the different stitches their machine can make. I have my beginners make a sampler of the stitches to use in the Needle Case project.

This project makes a very good first sewing machine project. View the steps in my download sample for March.

Thanks to Allie, one of the girls in my after-school program class, who helped me with this project.

View the steps in my Download Samples.  This project is also available as a downloadable slide show in my shop, making it great for homeschooling and kids’ classes.

We had fun in October sewing costumes from the ideas in Emma Hardy’s wonderful book Sewing for Children.

My grandchildren in the 5-7 age group love to work on hand sewing projects. Sewing cards, available in craft stores like JoAnn’s or Michael’s, are still a good way to begin. They can experiment any way they like to start with, and then usually like the pattern formed by a consistent overcast or running stitch around the edges.

They also like sewing and stuffing small felt shapes. I like to use the felt shapes patterns from Palmer/Pletsch to make the shapes. The patterns and some felt shapes kits are available in my kits section, or make your own using cookie cutters or applique designs.

Try putting musical buttons to press inside, or dried good-smelling herbs to make sachets.

I have also opened a new Etsy shop you can visit at www.etsy.com/shop/sewingwithgrandma. You’ll find some smaller individual item kits from my Sewing with Grandma book and CD there.