Learn to sew - lesson 3 applique

So how are you getting on? I hope your doing lots of practicing!?

Today is about more practicing!yay! Its all part of it so bear with me.

I ask her where the presser foot is & needle. Asking questions as we ho along to make it familiar as possible.
With a new piece of fabric the practicing begins.
I say its up to you what you do. But maybe start by following the piece of fabric. So she sews around the fabric.
Pivoting around the corners. She likes this bit and its great *practice* at using the presser foot a lifting up and down the needle wheel.

 We then move on. I explain about stitches. She has been using a med straight stitch. But that can be made longer or shorter.
And the stitches can be different. (Depending on your machine) so I show her the different stitches. And she gets excited! So I give her the option of what to choose and let her go with it.

she tries lots out and enjoys it.

 Whilst this is happening she is always in control of the machine, going at her own pace, making her own decisions of what to do. And shes creating! Getting more confident as she goes. 

Success! 

But there is more!... 

ready for a small project. 

We are going to do some applique. 

I show her my bag of scraps and say she can choose a few fabrics that we are going to cut shapes out of. 

She loved choosing her own colours and patterns. 

Next we iron the chosen fabrics. 

Cut into shapes.

Arrange the shapes on a piece of fabric. 

 Next part is pinning the shapes onto the fabtic. She definetly needed help with this bit. I showed her what to do. And she gave it ago. She found ot hard bringing the pin through. But we kept with it.

 Our shapes are looking good!

 She was keen to get started. So she began takjng one shape at a time sewing each one on. This is a great excercise to do. As there is alot of stopping and starting. Needle in and out and cutting the thread and moving onto the next shape.

 It took her two sessions to complete all the shapes. I try and give her room when she says she needs a break
 I dont want to over kill the whole sewing thing.

She uses straight stitch all the way round each shape. 

And its complete, tada! 

A round up from today: 

continued pivoting round corners, 

following the fabric doing straight lines,

we have tried out new stitches,

Choosing fabric, 

pinning fabric shapes to fabric, 

stitching shapes onto fabric (lots of stops and starts) 

Controlling the needle wheel. 

Phew a good days work!

What are you going to applique? 

Or you could try stitching your initials?

Next time... 

our chosen project is to make a drawstring bag! 

So cute! 

Watch this space :-)

For lesson 4 - go here