Sewing Project for an 8 Year Old

Moozle needed a bag for her soft leather dancing shoes so we chose some pre-cut felt rectangles, checking  that the shoes would fit before she went ahead with the sewing.

I'd given her a lesson in using the sewing machine a couple of weeks beforehand so I decided it would be good to do some of the project on the machine. 

First of all she drew a picture on one of the felt pieces and chose the colours of embroidery cotton she wanted to use. Then she stitched the outline of her bird using a backstitch with three strands of cotton.

The two pieces of felt were sewn together on the outside leaving the top edge free. A pink coloured pencil was used to colour in the bird and make its body look fluffy.

With a large needle threaded with some thinnish ribbon and some dots in pencil about an inch and a half (4cm ish) from the top I placed there to guide her, she threaded a drawstring for her bag.

Materials Needed:

2 pieces of felt - felt is a good choice because it doesn't slip as much as some materials and it doesn't fray on the edges.

Embroidery cotton - we used what we had which was DMC stranded cotton. 3 strands is thick enough to show up nicely. 

A length of narrow ribbon for the drawstring - we used about 35 inches (90 cm) of ribbon.

All up it cost $2.50 for the felt and ribbon.