This weekend we visited friends with young children. E is, I think 5, and K is, I think, 7. We watched acrobatics and karate practice. As usual, I had stitching with me. This time a stamped dish towel to outline stitch. E was quite intrigued. I had a baggie of felt scraps from another project in my tote and pulled them out. We decided on a butterfly. I sketched one in pen and then she picked her colors. I've noticed children prefer to have choices. I showed her how to pull strands from the cut length of floss. I doubled them over and locked them in the eye of the needle (thread the loop through the eye and then put the point of the needle through the loop and pull tight.She couldn't unthread the needle and set off with me showing her how to do a running stitch. She finished her butterfly quickly. I was intrigued to watch her lay the colors of thread out in the order she wanted. The first time she came to the end of her shape she waited patiently for me to thread a new color in the needle. The second time, she picked her color, cut a strand of thread with me guiding her regarding the length, and then began pulling out the strands. I threaded needles and made knots in the tail after that--otherwise she was on her own.
Next she wanted a horse. Her daddy drew that. Then she noticed I wasn't doing the same stitch she was. So I taught her outline stitch and she stitched her horse. We discussed how curves came out nicer if you made smaller stitches on them and she continued to do that as she worked her way around the complex outline.
She then carefully trimmed around her treasures.
Her brother was intrigued but not at all sure about those needles that prick fingers. (He saw me prick myself.) So he dictated and I stitched. I think it's a Pokeman figure. He carefully selected the figure, drew me several sketches to base the design on, picked out thread colors. When I didn't have black, he suggested I cut very tiny pieces of black felt and sew them on with the darkest thread I had.
We then backed his figure with another fabric and stitched around, with K carefully adding a cotton ball to round the shape out. Then he cut around the shape, with mommy's help. (The photo was taken before we stitched on the back and cut the figure out.)
Boy, was it intense! Both children had much more concentration and focus than I did at their ages. All the while the adults were having good conversations, over the top of our our stitching. The fun only stopped because we had to start on our long ride home. I realized I hadn't moved for hours... youch! But it certainly was fun.
