Hearts Knit Together was born out of my struggle to balance my desire to create with my busy life as a working mother of four. I am challenging myself to do something creative WITH my children each week and to share that adventure with you on Mondays. I invite you to share your creativity with your children so that we might inspire each other with ideas to help "knit our hearts together" with our children.
Ginny Sheller first introduced me to this book, Sewing for Children.
She posted several projects that her children had made for their siblings for birthday gifts. I decided to try it out and ordered it for Maeve (age 6) for Christmas. I was thrilled when she was excited about it! She has made several projects out of the book since then. She needs me help to thread the needle and tie knots but once she gets sewing she does great. I make the templates and she pins them on the felt and cuts out the pieces herself. It makes her feel very independent but she loves me to sit right next to her as she sews.
Maeve made a felt cupcake and sweet bun first. Then a cow finger puppet. Now she is onto this cat purse and a doll. Apparently she is getting into the swinging of crafting with multiple works in progress. We have special one on one time on Sundays for 30 minutes or so to talk about her week, evaluate her behavior contracts, and do something fun together. Sometimes she picks to play the game Clue (who thought it was a good idea to make a murder game for children? We have Clue Junior but they prefer the real thing. I guess the fact that I purchased it makes me look just as bad as the inventor...) and other times she wants to sew. Also one of the envelopes in her mystery motivation bag for practicing her violin is 15 minutes sewing with mom. So we have that built in sewing time and try to squeeze in other time as we can.
I would highly recommend this book. There are lots of fun projects that my children want to make. And really pretty simple for a beginner. What have you been creating with your children this week?
(Did you notice the wonderful tissue paper flowers my girls made me for Mother's Day? They are beautiful. The girls spoiled me on Mother's Day and I am shocked my little monkey boys haven't destroyed them yet!)
Labels: Children, Hearts Knit Together, sewing
