Quilting with a 4 year old!!

Duh! That'll teach me to read the subject lines!
Roberta in D

"Patti" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
The clue is in the title!!
.
In message , Roberta Zollner
writes
Lovely story! How old is the talented new seamstress?
Roberta in D

"Tia Mary" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
Hi Guys,
Just returned from our annual trip to Lizard Land and the SMDGD's
b-day
trip -- Disneyland this year. I made her a bunny quilt this year
(photos
will be posted soon) which I made on my clunky sewing machine while we
were up at our cabin for a few days.
While I was there, DSonIL niece had her baby shower to which I was
invited. I had taken fabric with me so that I could make a baby quilt
AND
I promised Raechel (the SMDGD) that she could help me sew! OY, the
pain -- LOLOL! Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to plan a very
easy 40" square finished size quilt of 5" finished whole cloth blocks in
blues & yellows (stars & moons) -- each row staggered by half. This
meant
that I had NO corners to try and match, which was a good thing.
I got the blocks cut out while at the cabin and then sewed the blocks
into rows once back at DD's house. The SMDGD "helped" sew the rows
together -- the main reason for having the rows of blocks staggered by
half :-). I got "R" on my lap sitting at the machine -- no mean feat
since I am larger than the average bear and the kiddo is now 42" tall! I
would start the stitching and then let her help me feed the fabric
through
the machine. Needless to say, those seams weren't terribly straight
since
I was having trouble trying to see around her head while sewing a 1/4"
seam.
During the sewing, I would tell "R" that we had made a mistake and I
would fix it. Then I would let her get down and play a bit while I
resewed the seam making sure that the sewing was straight and at 1/4".
Then I would start the next row and call her to get up on my lap to help
finish it. There were eight rows so we did this seven times. By the
end,
she was really tuckered out (I was exhausted and had the devil of a
headache from craning my neck to see around her) so she was happy to
stop
for the day. That evening I sandwiched and pin basted the quilt --
with help of course. She knew she couldn't touch the basting pins when
they were opened but she was right there to hand me the closed pins and
just give general assistance -- LOL!
The next day was the machine quilting -- with help again. Since I
had
such wonderful help, I decided that the best quilt design would be
straight lines horizontally & vertically done using the multi-stitch
zig-zag. I had help with this, too, so the quilting lines aren't as
straight as they could be -- LOLOL yet again :-)). I made sure that the
quilt label included Raechel's name (I fussy cut large kitty designs
from
fabric with a white ground) and then I let her "sign" the quilt in one
of
the open areas of the kitty design.
By the time we were done (fortunately, she didn't want to help
machine
sew the binding -- LOL -- as there's not a lot of room there for fixing
mistakes) she was as proud as punch with what she had accomplished. I
let
her take the quilt over to Mommy, Daddy & GrandFather and show them the
beautiful blankie she had helped GrandMother make. Then when we were at
the shower, she got to show her cousin where she had signed the quilt
and
tell her all about sewing like a "big lady" :-).
It took me days to recuperate from the experience (my neck muscles
were
NOT happy) but it was well worth any problems I might be having. DD (now
40) reminded me that she still remembers helping Nana (my Mom) paint
pictures and make tissue paper flowers, etc. when she was about the same
age as Raechel. So, not only will I have given the SMDGD some hopefully
fond memories, I might also have started another young one down the
quilting path. She already LOVES to go shopping, especially to Joann's.
She loves to look at fabrics so sewing and quilting are hopefully next
on
the list of things GrandMother can get her addicted to, LOL. CiaoMeow
^;;^

PAX, Tia Mary ^;;^ (RCTQ Queen of Kitties)
Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about
their whiskers!
Visit my Photo albums at http://community.webshots.com/user/tiamary



--
Best Regards
pat on the hill

Okay, I'm an idiot... I know the GD of SMDGD is granddaughter but what
is the SMD?

It sounds like you had a fabulous time.

Tricia in TX
http://photos.yahoo.com/momiixii



Tia Mary wrote:
Hi Guys,
Just returned from our annual trip to Lizard Land and the SMDGD's
b-day trip -- Disneyland this year. I made her a bunny quilt this year
(photos will be posted soon) which I made on my clunky sewing machine
while we were up at our cabin for a few days.
While I was there, DSonIL niece had her baby shower to which I was
invited. I had taken fabric with me so that I could make a baby quilt
AND I promised Raechel (the SMDGD) that she could help me sew! OY, the
pain -- LOLOL! Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to plan a very
easy 40" square finished size quilt of 5" finished whole cloth blocks in
blues & yellows (stars & moons) -- each row staggered by half. This
meant that I had NO corners to try and match, which was a good thing.
I got the blocks cut out while at the cabin and then sewed the blocks
into rows once back at DD's house. The SMDGD "helped" sew the rows
together -- the main reason for having the rows of blocks staggered by
half :-). I got "R" on my lap sitting at the machine -- no mean feat
since I am larger than the average bear and the kiddo is now 42" tall! I
would start the stitching and then let her help me feed the fabric
through the machine. Needless to say, those seams weren't terribly
straight since I was having trouble trying to see around her head while
sewing a 1/4" seam.
During the sewing, I would tell "R" that we had made a mistake and I
would fix it. Then I would let her get down and play a bit while I
resewed the seam making sure that the sewing was straight and at 1/4".
Then I would start the next row and call her to get up on my lap to help
finish it. There were eight rows so we did this seven times. By the
end, she was really tuckered out (I was exhausted and had the devil of a
headache from craning my neck to see around her) so she was happy to
stop for the day. That evening I sandwiched and pin basted the quilt --
with help of course. She knew she couldn't touch the basting pins when
they were opened but she was right there to hand me the closed pins and
just give general assistance -- LOL!
The next day was the machine quilting -- with help again. Since I
had such wonderful help, I decided that the best quilt design would be
straight lines horizontally & vertically done using the multi-stitch
zig-zag. I had help with this, too, so the quilting lines aren't as
straight as they could be -- LOLOL yet again :-)). I made sure that the
quilt label included Raechel's name (I fussy cut large kitty designs
from fabric with a white ground) and then I let her "sign" the quilt in
one of the open areas of the kitty design.
By the time we were done (fortunately, she didn't want to help
machine sew the binding -- LOL -- as there's not a lot of room there for
fixing mistakes) she was as proud as punch with what she had
accomplished. I let her take the quilt over to Mommy, Daddy &
GrandFather and show them the beautiful blankie she had helped
GrandMother make. Then when we were at the shower, she got to show her
cousin where she had signed the quilt and tell her all about sewing like
a "big lady" :-).
It took me days to recuperate from the experience (my neck muscles
were NOT happy) but it was well worth any problems I might be having. DD
(now 40) reminded me that she still remembers helping Nana (my Mom)
paint pictures and make tissue paper flowers, etc. when she was about
the same age as Raechel. So, not only will I have given the SMDGD some
hopefully fond memories, I might also have started another young one
down the quilting path. She already LOVES to go shopping, especially to
Joann's. She loves to look at fabrics so sewing and quilting are
hopefully next on the list of things GrandMother can get her addicted
to, LOL. CiaoMeow ^;;^

PAX, Tia Mary ^;;^ (RCTQ Queen of Kitties)
Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about
their whiskers!
Visit my Photo albums at http://community.webshots.com/user/tiamary

And I'm wondering if some version of string-quilting might work well with
a little one's assistance. The seam width wouldn't matter much, and if
you cut the pieces, you could hope that most of them would be big enough
to keep moving. You could even let her 'press' with one of those cute
little wooden things. Polly

actually this was something I'd thought of as a potential future project,
problem is, I can't cope with DS on my knee for long enough to do much

Anne