Yesterday my eldest DGS (aged 7 this past January) came over for the first day of spring break to do some sewing with me. It was a first. He'd been fascinated with my old Singer 99 handcrank, so last Friday I'd had him "sewing" on lined paper (without thread) to practice going straight.
So yesterday was the "big" day when he was to sew on fabric. I'd bought some blackboard fabric, and Benjamin had chosen some sports-themed fabric to make borders on a placemat. Before he arrived, I cut the borders out; I wasn't going to let him near the rotary cutter, of course! ;) Oh, and I prepared a pocket, too, for him to store the chalk for the blackboard.
Anyway, you should have seen what a nice job he made of sewing those borders onto the blackboard fabric! I'm so proud of him! :D After the entire "top" was put together (I supervised, but he really did do *all* of the sewing), I sandwiched it with batting and backing; then Benjamin sewed all around the edges, leaving a hole for turning/birthing the thing. And that's where his attention span sort of fizzled. He'd been sewing for a couple of hours by then, of course, so it wasn't unexpected. I topstitched the thing for him, since he was anxious for the finished product and since I thought it was important for him to have something to show his parents. I did the topstitching on my Bernina, and you should have seen how big his eyes got when he saw how fast that machine can go, compared to the handcrank! LOL! He had to have a turn on that with some scraps before he went home, of course.
All in all, quite a fun morning! :)