Miss J is Stitching!--Post 1

Miss J's work on top; our work on the bottom

Miss J and I had some fun drawing pictures. We drew some together too! On September 5, 2018, when we had drawn a picture that Miss J liked, we darkened the drawing with a Sharpie pen. Then, she selected a piece of fabric. She liked the natural muslin best. She traced some parts of her drawing with a pencil on the fabric. She wanted me to draw the points though!

I cut a piece of stabilizer for the back and she fused it to her fabric. She looked through the embroidery thread box and chose a purple thread. I looked through my needle selection and found one that has a large eye and a fairly long shaft as I thought that style of needle would be easier for her little hands to use. We started to outline stitch her drawing. I liked her purple thread choice.

Progress at the end of the first day!

This will be an ongoing project; but, I think that she will enjoy putting in a few stitches each day that she spends playing with us! It might be a small wall hanging, or it could be a pillow, or it could be framed like art. She will figure out what she wants when the time comes.  She has stated that her work needs some pony beads so we will work out how to make that happen!

Perhaps, she will enjoy having her first handwork to share when she is older.  I kept and used a pincushion that I had made when I was ten. Three years ago, the dog chewed it up. I still have the memories of making it with my grandma.  I hope that she will remember this experience with her grandma at least as fondly as I remember my sewing experience with my grandma!

Slowly stitching the hair

In the meantime, our goal is to stitch together a bit each day she is here. Most days we are able to meet this goal; but, sometimes we have other "more important items" on her agenda that need doing! The time we spend might be about 15 minutes. It is hard for her fingers to coordinate the needle to pierce the line especially coming from the underside of her work. The needle easily unthreads itself; but, we manage.

She made the executive decision that her figure needed to have different colored hair so she chose another color of thread as she reached each spike of hair.

Finishing stitching the last blade of hair

Miss J decided that it takes a long time to stitch, because it is a challenge to enter and exit the fabric where she wants. Additionally, the needle is sharp! At the end of November, she had stitched the outline of the head and five of the nine blades of the hair.  She had completed almost half of her figure.

She thinks the blades of her girl's hair need to be "filled in." We will have to talk about what "filled in" means to her. Does she want to do more hand stitching?  Does she want to use crayons to create the color? Does she want to fill in the space with free motion quilting? Or is there yet another option? Miss J has definite opinions about her work!

A smoothie with a blueberry muffin is so tasty

I am intrigued with how quickly she makes her color choice! Her colors all play nicely with each other. In January, she finished stitching all her girl's hair. She told me that the next part she wants to stitch is the girl's eyes.

After we finished stitching the hair, we baked blueberry muffins and banana bread. Then while the bread was baking, she decided we needed to make a blueberry/strawberry smoothie too! So. . .we did!