Kids Quilt

I finally introduced the kids to quilting. Over the Christmas holidays we took a break from school and made a quilt for the new baby of a good friend.

Sparkle and Glitter picked out the main fabric, then I picked out the co-ordinating fabric for the sashing. I cut the pieces and explained how to put the pieces together. However, Sparkle and Glitter stitched all the seams. Well, Wander saw the girls sewing and wanted in on making the quilt, so he did one seam.

It is not their first times using my sewing machine, but it was by far the biggest project and they finally started to feel confidant at the machine. I attribute their progress to the sheer number of straight seams the quilt required. I didn't show them any shortcuts in piecing because I wanted them to have lots of practice on the little things like lowering and raising the presser foot, and dealing with thread tails. I also wanted to limit the number of long seams in case I had to rip any stitching. Overall, I am coming to think that piecing a quilt top is the idea introduction to machine stitching.

The design was my original idea. I wanted something relatively quick that looked good without having to match any seams. I am very proud of this design. A side benefit of the design was that it eased the girls from watching the needle / seam line to watching the edge of the presser foot. Soon they will be ready for a regular 5/8th inch seam allowance without an extra guide.

I ended up not using the speed limit feature on the sewing machine to slow down the kids. We kept having brown outs and I would forget to reset it. The kids did great in maintaining a reasonable speed on their own. I also ended up not requiring an extended "no finger zone" on the machine. I let them carefully have their fingers on the fabric right up to the foot, and they were really careful. It is so much easier to control the fabric that way.