Today I’m excited to be part of the blog tour for Sewing School 2: Lessons in Machine Sewing by Amie Petronis Plumley and Andria Lisle for Storey Publishing. I’m sure you already have their first book, featuring fun hand-sewn projects to get kids enthusiastic about sewing. This book is the follow-up with thirteen basic lessons on machine sewing, plus 20 projects. The thing I love most about their books is that the kids actually made the projects pictured in the book, which allows children to understand that imperfection is part of the learning process. They will have plenty of time to feel guilty about not living up to unrealistic standards of perfection later in life.
I worked on the Welcome to My Room door hanger with my 8-year-old daughter yesterday.
We decided to use felt for the project and really the whole thing could have been glued together, but the point was to practice using the machine! My daughter had the idea to add a pocket so people could leave her notes. Then she suggested that we braid some yarn for the hanger, but we found a bag of finger weavings and decided to sew one to the back. I even let her use the rotary cutter to slice through the heavy-weight felt, though it required a little extra pressure from me. This industrial wool felt is thick, but I tested a sample, lowered the tension, and set the machine to a zig-zag stitch, then she sewed the project pretty easily.
She wanted to add a photo to the opening, but she plans to also use it when she has very important messages to share with the family, like Keep Out or Dance Party Today!
We had lots of fun with this project and I think the book is an excellent way to get your kids started with machine sewing. You can see the blog tour schedule here.
