The Travel Blanket…

I hope your new year is off to a good start. Our holiday was very busy but it was wonderful. I loved spending time with the family and friends. Holidays are a lot of hard work but so worth it. It is nice to be back to the regular grind though.

This morning Doodles and I started back to her home school routine. We didn’t take a lot of time off during the holidays. We had lighter days of work but, we still did some school work most days, accept the holidays. 

She has been busy learning the 50 states and to locate them on a blank map. I thought it would be fun this morning to change things up a bit with her geography lesson and make a travel blanket with her.

She pulled out her little Hello Kitty machine and did most all the sewing herself; however, I did help a bit with the pinning of the pieces and the top stitch afterwards.  We used a pre-printed fabric panel. We found the panel at Hobby Lobby. It is the perfect size for a lap blanket for a child and I love the colors and the graphics are very neat. We also just used a piece of polar fleece for the back. We didn't use any batting. I wanted to keep it a very simple project for her.

She is excited about the idea of taking it as a lap blanket on road trips and also adding the buttons on the states that she has traveled to.

Today she is up to Pennsylvania, remembering the states in alphabetical order.  She loved using her blanket to show me where all the states are.  It was a fun little project and I would have taken photos of her while she was sewing but she wouldn’t allow it, since her hair was up in curlers.

Hope you all have a very blessed 2012

DoodleBug Makes Her First Skirt

Wow, OK before I start let me say, I am getting behind here since I bought my serger. My blog is not the only thing that has gotten behind since the serger came home, laundry, sweeping, mowing...OK, I must stop or I will be on a huge guilt trip and I really don't want to go there. Pleasure trips are more my cup of tea.

Well, Doodles finally got a chance to make a skirt for Fluffy and try out her machine. She is counting down the days of her last couple of weeks at school. She has big plans to spend a lot of time with Mamaw doing a bit of sewing this summer. I think that sounds like a fun way to me to spend some of those hot summer days, inside sewing with my best friend.

Well, here are a few photos of her process with her little sewing machine.


She first took a few measurments of Fluffy.


She cut a strip of fabric allowing a bit for gathering around the top of the skirt.


We were very careful with her using the iron. I wanted to teach her how much better her sewing would look if she got into learning to press her fabric and even showed her to fold under her hem and casing and pressed before we went to the machine. She needs a small iron of her own. I do wished I could find her Papaw's travel iron. That one would be perfect for her.

She did really well for her first sewing project. She has been drawing and painting since she was very small and I think because of that fact, she has very good fine motor skills for her age.











She did well making her seams and it was a simple little plan of sewing a casing and a hem then closing the back seam, adding ribbon through the top casing and wah la! Fluffy has a new skirt. She wants to make a purse next. This should be fun.