Project from Grandma Camp

 Hello, everyone.

We have the custom of spending time with grandchildren in their summer break, for a week or two, and learning new things during that time.

This year we had another hand embroidery project: A small felt pillow.

To put it together, after cutting the heart shapes from the felt, we did something analogous to floating the fabric on the embroidery machine: A piece of scrap voile was hooped in the round embroidery hoop and the felt for embroidery was basted in place on the voile. The voile held the felt in place and under reasonable tension. It also reinforced the back side of the felt against pulling. After she finished the flower, most of the voile was cut away before completing the little cushion.

DGD was interested in learning a new stitch, satin stitch, and wanted to make a flower with a huge satin stitched center. We talked the length of the stitchs over and decided that over the satin stitch she would also learn to make lattice work to stabilize the satin stitches.

DGD is a rising third grader. She used my floor embroidery stand to hold the hoop and chose her colors to meld together rather than contrast. After stuffing the heart she overcasted the edge all around. I have hopes that she will continue to make projects with satin stitch and lattice work, developing her skills and making beautiful gifts for her family members.

DGS, some years younger, also learned a new skill: using a needle to string pony beads. He used one of the plastic needles that comes with child-level needlepoint kits, and cotton string. I wish I had known how successful this would be back when I was teaching first grade CCD! 

 

I have left the childrens' faces out of these pictures. This is in line with my philosophy that other peoples' lives are not mere raw material for my publishing. Those lives belong to the people who are living them. Attentive readers may have notice the lack of personal notes about other people in my Camino and other travel posts. This is the reason.