We are having a smaller 8 week Term to allow for holidays and travels. So I chose to offer embroidery supplies again this Advent term as an easy way for the children to make gifts for friends and family.
Because of the great outpouring of encouragement and wonder from my pictures, I'm placing here some basic instructions to help get you started in your home. Begin where you are. Move forward slowly. Let needle and thread become your friend. This is a life long skill.
Things to buy:
Simple plain cotton or cotton blend fabric in either white or grey (1 yard each)
3 inch and 4 inch round wood hoops (enough for each child to have 2 or 3)
Embroidery floss (might want to pick up a multi color pack)
Embroidery needles
Scissors
Preparation by the mother:
In a large open basket, place:
-A pin cushion, magnet or small tin to store all the needles in. (I only put out 1 per child at a time)
-Small pair of scissors
-Embroidery hoops prepped with fabric. First iron the fabric.
(You can employ a child to help with this!)
Cut the fabric to 5 inch squares for the 3 inch rounds or 7 inches for the 4 inch rounds. Place fabric in embroidery hoops.
Using a simple pattern, such as this made by my high school aged daughter, carefully write with a pencil on the fabric to create some guides for sewing. ETA: Valentines Day embroidery ideas
-Embroidery floss Cut the floss into 18" and wrap onto embroidery thread cards. Place one or two lengths on each card. Refill as needed. (Giving the child a whole skein of embroidery floss is almost a given that you will have a knotted ball the next time you see it!)
To begin embroidery, you may wish to teach a child how to sew on a button first. This helps them get comfortable with pulling the thread through the fabric forward and back and not around the hoop. I have given my Form 0 child a hoop with gingham check fabric to allow them to see the lines and make patterns with the white squares and the colored ones. Let them learn by doing, by failing and by trying again.
Let them learn how to thread a needle themselves. Make sure to choose needles with large enough heads to accommodate the size of floss you are using. Teach them how to reduce the floss to just two strands of thread. Pulling thread of six strands of floss through any fabric can be difficult.
Set a timer (I personally think 10 minutes for Form 1) for the first few times they work. It's much smarter to end happy and wanting to return to your project than to quit frustrated and never return. A hoop with a project ongoing can easily be set back into the open basket waiting for the next afternoon.
Teach the child to store their needle in the fabric of their own hoop while projects are still in the process. It's never fun to find a needle in the middle of the room stuck in the carpet.
As the mother you may wish to watch this simple video. I like to teach these basic stitches to my children when they are around Form 3 or developmentally ready. With six children of my own, I have all skill levels at all ages. Some kids have great fine motor skills and this comes easy to them. Others struggle and it becomes a real development of the will to continue to work on this skill. Progress is the key.
Consider a "shared" 20 minutes of everyone working at the same time. With younger children you may wish to have the lesson learning be part of the morning, then offering an more independent time in the afternoon. With mom offering her wise passiveness beside the child while she works on her own embroidery project, you can create the attitude of independent work and help mother have some down time doing her own growing work at the same time. My older children will sometimes do embroidery while I read aloud a family read.
Make sure to show off the work or make it ready to give away as a gift!
To complete the project, place a bead of glue around the edge of the back side of the hoop where the two frames meet. Tighten the hoop one last time. Then trim the edges off. (Be careful to not over trim!) Trace a circle of high quality paper/cardstock to cover the back. Glue onto the frame. Thread a ribbon through the metal screw at the top of the hoop and you are read to hang up your embroidery.
Here are two projects I finished a few years ago while we were traveling.
Can you guess which state we might have visited?
