Late Summer Sewing

Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither.     
      ~William Wordsworth




  These little hands are so precious cutting out her first little zipper bag.  I  had some late summer  time with the Florida girls before school started so we decided to make pencil cases.  So far they have turned into lip gloss cases, change cases, treasure cases, and whatever is little and will fit cases.  We are all very proud.

We decided to google zipper cases so that we could make one any time, even if Bibi wasn't here to guide as we sewed.  We watched many videos on U-Tube, and combined several to make our cases  special.  Both girls chose their fabrics from Bibi's scraps, chose a lining that they like, and decorated the front of the case with ribbon and decorative stitches.  It was fun to practice the decorative stitches on the Bernina 350, and they used the guide foot to make their lines as straight as possible.

 We have had many discussions about straight pins on the floor, and right now we are using quilting pins that are easy to spot if they fall.  Uncle Brent has stories to tell about straight pins and bare feet as he was growing up, but we will not go into those stories right now.







It was absolutely AMAZING to put the zipper in between the rectangles of fabric.  Both girls have learned to sew nice straight seams!

 And we have learned that everything that you sew looks better when you take the time to press every seam as you go, but that you have to be careful with special ribbons or a hot iron will melt them!

 Of course, the joyful part for BIBI is to take a snapshot on the completion of the project.  We had a great afternoon sewing, and Issa wore a cross body bag that she designed on her own after Sew Camp.  She loves her little hair bow, too.

All of this fun is almost more than a Bibi can take in one afternoon!

Sew Fun

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Learn as much as you can
while you are young,
since life becomes too busy later. 
                      ~Dana Stewart Scott

    I have had this post on my mind most of the summer.  I taught 3 little sewing camps; two at the store and one at home.  It took some time to plan, but I absolutely loved sharing my love of sewing with these little girls. They were so excited to have the opportunity to use a sewing machine and to create something that they could wear or use.  

   We did our camp in four days, four hours a day.   Our first day we made aprons that I had personalized with their name in embroidery.  The apron was made from a dish towel; we made a casing at the top and ran a ribbon through it for the ties; folded it to form pockets and sewed them down.  I think they were precious, and the girls enjoyed having something the very first day that they could wear.

Our next project was a travel pillow.  For the pillow I made sure that we had cute fabrics and a very basic pattern.  We added a pocket to the front of the pillow and the girls used an edge foot to sew the pocket down with a straight topstitch.  an added ribbon handle gave the project a little more color, and I know they used them for late summer vacations.  Turning the pillow and stuffing it was next, and a very difficult task was closing the opening on the bottom with a hand sewn whipstitch.  But they persevered and we we proud of our pillows.
     Our third day was buttons and bows.  We made hair bows that   we sewed to a ready made headband, and learned how to sew a button onto a felt flower.  Sweet Gracie went a step further with her button and made herself a ring!

Our final day was spent making a skirt.  Each girl chose two coordinating fabrics and we made a gathered skirt with a two inch band at the bottom.  Having precious models helped, but the fashion show with 5 little girls was a sight to behold!

  The sight of these little ones at their machines just warms my heart.  Everyone at the store said that it was evident who was enjoying the class the most....and I will give you a clue, it was not my little girls!