Handicrafts: Embroidery

Charlotte Mason's programmes recommend a handicraft as part of the afternoon occupations for Forms 3 and up.  The younger forms would provide for some lesson time in the morning to learn basic skills to support the handicrafts.  In our family we tend to all do the same handicraft during the same term.  I've found embroidery to be one handicraft that supports a wide variety of ages and skill levels.  This year I have children in Forms 1b, 1a, 2, 4 and 5.

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?  

grow

July 2013

June 2014

Last year we moved into this house in June.  By July we had a nice little garden and had tidy-d up the flower garden that had been overgrown.  

This year we have a much larger garden and things are really starting to look nice!

sap results

Our final line up in the pantry of homemade maple syrup.  We've given some away.  This was two days worth of "cooking" from 5 maple trees.  We will do this again next year.  

And few more photos of our "process".

Boiling the sap

our makeshift "buckets" 

Removing the taps and plugging the holes

catching up...

I'm finally downloading a gazillion photos of our house and things happened over the past six months.

So this is how the house looked when we first checked it out.  Sad.  Bench in front was covering up the septic tank (that was ripped out before we moved in).  Trees hadn't begun to leaf out yet.  

But mainly there were hideous bushes in front.  Completely over grown and shutters that screamed from the 1980's.

So we began (with much help) to remove the 30 shutters from the house.  And the 12 shutters from the garage.  

And to remove some bushes from around the house.  (Here you can see the trees and bushes had begun to leaf out!  Beautiful!)

We counted the rings in the bushes.  At least 50 years old.  If you can count by rings.  

It was an unforgettable father's day event.  

And the days and weeks surrounding it we painted those shutters and put them back up.

And we were left with a much fresher and happier house.  

Bushes are gone as is one Japanese maple that was crowding the front door.

Here's back of the house now.  Surrounded by the snow of Winter 2013 and early 2014.