Autumn’s sewing

The pillow that she sewed on the machine on Thursday October 16th

The pillow that Autumn hand-sewed at Grandma's house and finished on this most recent visit

On Thursday we actually didn’t have to rush off to somewhere in the morning, so as soon as I woke up I started looking through my fabric to figure out some of the doll clothes for Prairie for Christmas. Well Autumn came in the sewing room and started asking all of these questions and then started telling me how much she likes to sew. I am very excited about the prospect of Autumn liking to sew, but so far she has only done some very minimal sewing projects with her Grandma, and right at the moment I wasn’t in the right mood to do sewing with Autumn, but she was very persistent that she wanted to sew. She kept asking me what I was doing with the scraps of what I was cutting out. So we got her a box to store her scraps in.

Then I told her we really needed to eat breakfast before we did anything else. Well I called my mom “help! What kind of sewing project do I let a 4 year old do?” Let’s just say my mom is amazing! She talked me through gave me some really good ideas. Well as soon as breakfast was done Autumn was ready to sew again, but I told her we should get ready for story time and after that we could work on it some more. So well after story time we went to the grocery store, and by time we got home I had to rush to make lunch so it would be ready when Ben came home for our family meal of the day. So finally when the girls were both in their rests/naps I had finished cleaning up the kitchen and I made it back to the sewing room.

The room that Autumn takes a rest in is adjacent to the sewing room, so I started yelling, and she yells, don’t start without me, I love sewing. I told her that I can take a break and sew during her rest and when her rest is over (she has a digital clock so she knows) she can come in and we can work on her project. So like 10 minutes later her rest is over and we start her project.

She looks through my box of large scraps and finds some princess fabric leftover from sheets I made her last year and she decides these little squares would be perfect for a pillow for her doll. She does it. She pressed the fabric herself, she pins the pillow herself, and then I make her practice sewing straight lines on the sewing machine and she is struggling with this and gets really frustrated and decides that practicing isn’t any fun. She finally says in exasperation “I feel like I am so stupid at this and that I am not good at sewing!” Well I decided it was time to call Grandma again, and again she was amazing. I have no doubt that my mom is doing the right profession; she is an amazing teacher and works soooo well with children. So even though she had classes going on at her house, my mom took the time to talk to Autumn and give her a really good pep talk, and just explained that her students are usually 7 when they start, so it is going to be a little harder for Autumn, but she can do it. And then told some dirty secrets to Autumn, that when I started sewing when I was a child that I didn’t sew very straight lines, and Autumn thought that was really funny. Anyway Autumn was renewed after talking to Grandma.

So we did one more practice and it was really good, Autumn was so excited she had to call Grandma back and tell her, and Grandma was so excited for her. Then we decided that it was time to actually sew the pillow. So she sewed the pillow, she turned it, I showed her how to push out the corners. She pressed the pillow again, and then she stuffed it herself. She then pinned the opening close, and I asked her if she wanted to sew it on the machine or by hand, and she said by hand. Autumn said “I like sewing by hand it is so fun!” (well maybe she isn’t my daughter , I hate hand sewing). Grandma had taught her really well how to hand sew, so once I threaded the needle and put a knot in it she didn’t need any help, she just went right along, and did a great job.

She was really proud of the project that she finished. I don’t know how my mom teaches classes so many hours a week and doesn’t kill her back. My back was sore from leaning over to help Autumn so much. Autumn was very proud of her pillow and has already been talking about her next sewing projects, I guess I will have to cut down my list of sewing, because it is pretty time consuming to have Autumn sewing, but well worth the skill and confidence she is developing, plus maybe someday my girls will come home to visit and we can all sew in my basement together too.