Crafting With My Niece

The joy of having my niece come for a visit!

She seems to be following in the steps of her mother and auntie in the way of being creative. My sister (her mother), is super duper talented in the drawing category. She would never admit it though. But she is. I always remember my sister having pretty colored pencils and paints to draw about with when we were younger. And nice paper. Never was I let to use them, unless I would like my head handed to me! Being the little sister and all that I was/am. But I did get to enjoy the pretty pictures she would draw. Still have one she did for me. I need to get it framed.

Anyhoo, back to the visit from my delightful and clever little niece. During her spring break, she got to come over for two whole sleeps and her one and, very important, request was to do a sewing project with her auntie. Of course! I said. So we went about deciding what to do. She said something with a horse. She LOVES horses. And then she decided upon a pillow of some sort....with a horse. Naturally.

We went to the stash and she picked out some blue. Blue is her favorite color I came to find out. Previously it had been pink and purple. She chose a sweet little blue fabric quarter with some pink and white flowers splashed about on it. Then she picked out some pink felt for the horse.

Then we set to work tracing out a horse. She was excited about this process, but wished it could be faster. I don't blame her.




Once the horse was drawn, we had a pattern to work with. She got to learn how her Auntie Jaime goes about making appliques, which she thought was pretty cool. Then we cut it out and ironed it on to the fabric for the pillow. I showed her how to pin the fabric pieces together and tried my best to answer all her six year old questions of "why". I didn't mind....she wanted to learn! And I am happy to encourage the sewing bug.

Once all the pinning happened, the big moment came.....she got to use the sewing machine! A little nervous at first, but she did a great job. Thankfully they were all straight lines.

Then we stuffed the pillow.....




Here it is all finished. The only picture I could snap before she snatched it up and claimed she would never release it ever again.


I do believe she likes her first *using the sewing machine* creation.

And that is just fine with me.