Teach Me Tuesday

Today's "teaching moment," while it may not necessarily be a great tute for you, was literally a "teaching moment" for me.

I decided today that I would make some little bean bags for a class that I am going to start teaching, so I got out the fabric, the beans, the scissors, and the sewing machine and started to work when other smaller, less-experienced hands decided that they wanted to help. Ashlynn was too enthusiastic about learning how to sew to say no, so what probably could have taken me 30 minutes to do turned into a 2 hour project...but I think we had fun.

We decided how big we wanted the bean bags to be. I did a little demo for Ashlynn. I showed her where to put the presser foot, how to guide the fabric through the machine, how to do a regular stitch and backstitch, and then how to clip corners and turn the bag, and then set her loose to make 9 more bean bags. I cut out new bean bags as she sewed. There were a few snags along the way, but for the most part, since she was just sewing straight lines, once she got the hang of the machine she did pretty good.

I can remember my grandma teaching me everything about sewing when I was younger...and I'll just say, "She was a better woman than I am!" I definitely like to work at my own speed and do my own thing, so trying to teach Ashlynn to do what I wanted just about drove me nuts! BUT...I'm glad we did it. She had fun, and learned a little (I think.) It's probably an important skill for her to learn. Maybe next time we'll try something a little more complex.

Anyhoo...

For those of you looking for a simple project to do with the kiddos, here's Ashlynn's instructions for making bean bags:

1. Cut out the fabric to the desired size and shape. (We made our 5.5 inches square) Cut 2

2. Pin right sides together.

3. Straight stitch (and backstitch) 3 and a half sides of the bag.

4. Clip the corners.

5. Turn the bag right side out.

6. Fill with beans.

7. Top stitch closed the opening left for the beans.

DONE!!

Good job Ashy!