More sewing

After the girls' initial success with sewing pillows for the dolls, I tried to think of a new project to interest them. The idea came to me when we were going to the library.

I used to drag a boxy cart on wheels to the library. As the girls browsed the stacks, they dump whatever books they found interesting into the cart. Then, at checkout, we'd sort the books so that Sparkle could check out her own books on her own library card. Then all the books got dumped in the cart again.

One day we didn't have many books to return to the library and it was raining so I tossed the few books into a tote bag instead of using the cart. I enjoyed not having the bulky cart, so the next week, I pulled out three cheap, freebie bags and we each carried our own bags. A few weeks later those bags were falling apart at the seams.

I started with an idea from a book about sewing with kids and adapted it for us. Instead of starting with regular fabric, I took the girls to Goodwill and purchased over sized, colorful, cloth napkins. The girls got to pick out patterns they liked, and the edges of the fabric were already finished. It was $3 for the project -- more expensive than simply buying bags, but still cheap enough.

Once again, I started with Glitter, as Sparkle wasn't very interested. Glitter handed me pins and I pinned two of the napkins together. Glitter sat on my lap and pushed the foot pedal as I guided the fabric. We stitched three sides together to form a bag. Then I cut the third napkin into strips to make handles.

Sparkle wandered into the sewing room while Glitter and I worked and suddenly she wanted to sew as well. After I finished Glitter's bag, I repeated the procedure with Sparkle, except that she's too big to sit on my lap.

Finally, we loaded up the new bags with books and headed off to the library! The girls were so proud of their bags and carried them all around the library, filling them with books. Yay! Sparkle didn't whine for help when carrying her books to the check-out counter. The girls didn't fight over who got to pull the cart. I love it when a plan comes together.