Brenna got a little sewing machine from Santa. Once a week or so she’s been setting it up and working on the little lessons in Winky Cherry’s My First Machine Sewing Book. The genius of this book is that it has kids starting by sewing on paper, just tracing lines. Brenna loved the curvy lessons so much she did them several times. I was pretty surprised at how quickly she really caught on to steering. I had taught her to sew a little bit on my sewing machine just doing double layer flannel baby blankets which just entailed long straight lines, but watching her seam allowance was tricky for her to do. Punching holes on a drawn line with her needle has been much more fun for her. Since she’s mastered pivots and curves I thought we’d break out Amy’s Bend the Rules Sewing. I have several baby gifts to get made, so I thought I’d enlist some help. I made some bibs a while ago and just can’t get over how cool it is to trace the pattern onto a rectangle of fabric, sew on the line, and trim after sewing. I copied the patter on a few pieces of paper first, and once Brenna had perfected the curves she wet at it on fabric. Having a layer of flannel was perfect because it has enough grab that she didn’t have to think about her layers shifting because having them pinned bugged her. I helped a tiny bit with trimming them and turning the right side out. I also lined everything up right for her to hammer the snaps on, but for the most part she did them by herself. She can thread her machine and wind bobbins and everything.

She’s got two done. We’ll keep this polka dot one forever and ever. Hopefully someday her babies will wear it while eating Cheerios.

I just think she is so awesome– just the coolest kid ever!