Miss N is incredibly intrigued by craft at the moment. It’s as if her hands are restless and need to be occupied with a creative task. When her birthday arrived a couple of weeks ago she was gifted a number of craft kits which we have agreed to work through together each Monday afternoon. Our adventures into the land of sewing commenced earlier this afternoon with the creation of a felt teddy bear.
At only 6 years of age, Miss N is still developing her fine motor skills. I selected the Learning to Sew kit as our first exercise in hand sewing. The kit contains a large plastic needle (no thimble needed – it’s actually fairly blunt), the felt template, stuffing and embellishments for the eyes and bow. The perfect items to learn.
Sewing is a litte tricky for small hands. Despite a large needle the threads were easily knotted and confused. I modelled each stitch and then guided Miss N’s hand before letting her try herself. Progress was slow but she set her will at completing the task. At times I needed to pause the task to untie the knots that formed and unwind those that had caught upon each other, but she promptly resumed when ready.
After about an hour of sewing, Miss N was ready to stuff her teddy. The top of the head was left open so the stuffing could be pushed deep into the body and through to the legs and arms. Once the body was full of stuffing, Miss N stitched the remainder of the head so it was closed.
The last step was to add the eyes, mouth and bow. This was a simple task as each feature was a simple sticker and required no instructions. Easy peasy! Our first sewing adventure was a success!
Tonight Miss N fell to sleep with her teddy asleep next to her.