{"id":9483,"date":"2010-10-23T23:34:13","date_gmt":"2010-10-24T03:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/?p=9483"},"modified":"2012-04-13T18:17:31","modified_gmt":"2012-04-13T22:17:31","slug":"6-year-old-quilter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/23\/6-year-old-quilter\/","title":{"rendered":"6 year old Quilter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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sewing blocks together<\/p><\/div>\n

Laurel\u00c2\u00a0 is making her first quilt.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t know who is more excited, my little granddaughter or her Nana.<\/p>\n

We started this project mid-summer as part of our homeschool curriculum.\u00c2\u00a0 While she sewed, 5 year old Robert\u00c2\u00a0had shop class with\u00c2\u00a0 Granddad.\u00c2\u00a0 But one thing and another seemed to impede our progress and by the\u00c2\u00a0end of September, she had only embroidered 9 blocks, more than enough for this quilt.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0But piecing had not yet begun.<\/p>\n

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Children\u00c2\u00a0do not have great attention spans. I\u00c2\u00a0learned long ago when teaching my\u00c2\u00a0Rebecca to sew\u00c2\u00a0that they\u00c2\u00a0need completion in a relatively short period of time.\u00c2\u00a0 By Oct. 1, Laurel’s quilt was already in overtime as we began piecing.\u00c2\u00a0 She absolutely loved selecting the fabric strips and sewing up those blocks.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0I knew we had to keep our momentum and wrap this up soon.<\/p>\n

But\u00c2\u00a0it’s football season.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0On Saturdays, our family\u00c2\u00a0gathers here to watch the \u00c2\u00a0day’s games so very little sewing gets done.\u00c2\u00a0 The Florida had a bye this week—a blessed relief for the Gator Nation\u00c2\u00a0considering the way the season is going—so we could enjoy college football without biting our nails and groaning and wailing.\u00c2\u00a0 This also gave me a chance to sew today\u00c2\u00a0with Laurel, whose limited but growing knowledge of college football prevented her from understanding that the Gators did not play today.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, she\u00c2\u00a0arrived decked out\u00c2\u00a0with her Gator cap and ever-faithful game day companion, Gator Barbie.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Laurel loves the "hiking" fabric in this block, as well as the ScoobyDoo print.<\/p><\/div>\n

Laurel gave a lot of attention to arranging the blocks, deciding which of her embroidered blocks would be set aside for another project and which arrangement of pieced blocks\u00c2\u00a0was most pleasing.\u00c2\u00a0 I explained that marking each block with row and position, 1A, 1B, 1C, etc. would be a good idea in case the blocks were accidentally pushed off the table.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, we were sewing in the dining room with the door to the breakfast porch open to the breezy day.\u00c2\u00a0 Several blocks were blown off the table and Laurel thought I was soooo smart to have preserved her careful arrangement.<\/p>\n

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The fabric with American flags is one of her favorites.<\/p><\/div>\n

This seems to be a near perfect beginner quilt design.\u00c2\u00a0 One of my absolute rules for teaching children to sew is that\u00c2\u00a0the project\u00c2\u00a0must be a guaranteed success.\u00c2\u00a0 The redwork embroidery was a snap, with no color change and really no opportunity for failure.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve gotta love machine embroidery for that.<\/p>\n

But sashing seemed too challenging for a first quilt. So I defaulted to one of my favorite scrap quilt patterns which is simply random sized strips stitched to a heavily starched foundation square.\u00c2\u00a0 We digressed from the traditional red-and-white-only prints but did insure that each print had at least some red.\u00c2\u00a0 I like this variety and Laurel loved using Sponge Bob, ScoobyDoo and all the other novelty prints.\u00c2\u00a0 The pieced\u00c2\u00a0blocks\u00c2\u00a0are alternated with the redwork embroidered blocks.<\/p>\n

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The needle and thread fabric at the top of the block is her one of her favorites.<\/p><\/div>\n

The beauty of such a design for a beginner is that it is not dependent on accurate seam allowances or straight seams.\u00c2\u00a0 As long as that foundation square is covered with\u00c2\u00a0fabric, it can be trimmed to a given size.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Much as Laurel loved embroidering the redwork squares, she surprised me by her genuine delight and preference for actual sewing when we got to the block construction. Meanwhile, Laurel’s seams\u00c2\u00a0became straighter\u00c2\u00a0with each strip and then with each block.<\/p>\n

Both the embroidery and the muslin\u00c2\u00a0foundation squares\u00c2\u00a0measured 10″.\u00c2\u00a0 This gave a wide margin for error, as I had planned the squared up blocks\u00c2\u00a0to be cut\u00c2\u00a0from 7-9″, depending on the integrity of the block.\u00c2\u00a0 I do not believe beginning sewist should be made\u00c2\u00a0 to rip out.\u00c2\u00a0 So if\u00c2\u00a0too much rippling or puckering or whatever occurred,\u00c2\u00a0it likely could be cut away with those wide sizing parameters.\u00c2\u00a0 As it turned out,\u00c2\u00a0the blocks were squared up to 9″.<\/p>\n

This size should work out nicely.\u00c2\u00a0 With a 1\/2″ seam allowance and a simple 4″ border, the quilt top will\u00c2\u00a0accommodate a 45″ fabric width for backing. Plus,\u00c2\u00a0a first\u00c2\u00a0quilt needn’t be large.\u00c2\u00a0 Our plan is to turn the quilt, ala Eleanor Burns, rather than bind it,\u00c2\u00a0and\u00c2\u00a0 then tie it rather than quilt it.<\/p>\n

There is still a long way to go, but her enthusiasm has not diminished. I will keep you posted on her progress.\u00c2\u00a0 This is so much fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Laurel\u00c2\u00a0 is making her first quilt.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t know who is more excited, my little granddaughter or her Nana. We started this project mid-summer as part of our homeschool curriculum.\u00c2\u00a0 While she sewed, 5 year old Robert\u00c2\u00a0had shop class with\u00c2\u00a0 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":14472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[42,18,32,3,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9483"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9483"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9668,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9483\/revisions\/9668"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.janicefergusonsews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}