First stitches...

Today Miss S was at home with an ear infection which she has had for several days now.  So apart from the occasional brief stroll when she is feeling well, we are on housebound activities at the moment.

This afternoon I was catching up on the latest posts of my favourite blogs and saw this one from my fellow antipodean blogger over at With or Without Nap.  She too has a sick littlin' and was doing some pretty neat indoors crafts with her two girls.

When I saw the embroidery hoops and thread idea something clicked and I thought "Miss S could do that too".  It was time to teach her to sew.  How exciting!

So I cut a square of cotton fabric (I didn't use Aida), and let her pick out some colours of DMC floss, of which we used two strands.

I taught her about the knot, the eye of the needle, the thread and the tail and how to pull the thread through through the fabric without pulling it out of the needles' eye.  She was utterly enthralled.  Apart from threading each new colour on the needle and making a knot, she did the rest and I was really proud of her.  This is a great activity for practicing fine motor skills and concentration too.

And here is what she made:

Tonight I will finish embroidering the inscription (so she can have it as a keepsake).  It will read "Starla's first sampler, 8 Oct. '10.

Brings a tear to an embroidering mother's eye.

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Update:  Here it is all finished:  I may just stretch it over a small canvas if I can find one the right size.

And here's day two of learning to sew.  I wanted to teach her to follow lines and to make smaller, more even stitches.  

I drew a square and triangle on the fabric with a pencil and she followed around with stitches.  Then I added windows, a chimney, flowers and the sun, one by one and she picked colours out for each and then stitched them (she's still finishing it as the picture shows).  I sewed on some buttons that she chose for the flower heads.