Week 2 — Stitching with a grand daughter- Autumn Jubilee Quilt Along progress is slow –

Friday was “Week 2” of the Autumn Jubilee Quilt Along. Check the link for the pattern and block settings. Below is MY update. But first – I had pressing stitching to do!

I started on Friday morning with some fun sewing with my 6 year old granddaughter. When she arrived, she announced that she would like to “go sew”. Well, what grandma can say no to that, so off we went to my sewing room over the garage. When asked, she explained she wanted to make scarves for two of her dogs. You see, the last time she spent the night, we made a scarf for her newest dog, Tilly. So, scarves for 2 large male labs was on the agenda.

Not remembering sizes to cut, I looked to You Tube, and chose this video from Lorrie Nunemaker – https://youtu.be/rN63jQHP9DE . My granddaughter was diligent in watching from start to finish, where I was just there for some basics; sizes mostly. I brought out my tote of kid friendly fabric, and she chose 2 pieces. When asked, she explained that her dog Rudder, a very senior black Labrador, liked pink, and would be “happy to match the nightgown that grandma already made for me”. When asked, she said yes to putting the dog’s name on the scarf, like the lady in the video. So, after she ironed the fabric, with great emphasis on spraying it with water and getting out any wrinkles, I did the measuring and cutting. She helped me “find” the right numbers on the cutting mat. It was a tough explanation when I said the next press didn’t need quite so much water sprayed on the fabric. 😉 Watching the video with Lorrie, she observed that the pet names were put on the scarves, so of course, we did that as well. She sounded out the name and figured out what letters we needed, and keyed them in on the embroidery machine screen.

She iron, pinned, and stitched the triangular scarf for the dog. She understood the instructions to turn it right side out, pinned the gap and pressed, then top stitched to close the gap. She even helped me “squeeze the handle” on the kam snap setting tool. Of course, she selected the appropriate colors of snaps!! Before you know it, we were on to scarf # 2, with a short lunch break.

On this one, she explained that Rufus liked to play games and Red was his favorite color. Well, of course it was! Oh did she make me smile, and who’s to argue with a 6 year old about what her dogs do and don’t like! She remembered why we did each of the steps and asked after she turned and pressed the black scarf if she could sew it herself by hand. So, out came the needle & thread, and a demonstration about threading a needle with a needle threader and she closed it right up. We did top stitch around all 3 sides as well. Red snaps for this one and we were done in no time at all.

All that fun with a 6 year old, left me busy until nearly 3 pm, when I was able to get back on my own to the sewing room and start putting my blocks together for the #AutumnJubilee2022 quilt along.

I printed out the PDF that Carole provided in the blog post, and gathered my basket of pieces we worked on during week 1.

First block I kept out on the table so I could use it as a template –

Before dinner time, I had 8 blocks constructed and played around with a layout on the design wall.

Carole had a lot of layout suggestions on her blog post, and I love the one where you form a star and have a secondary pattern too.

Saturday I went to a local quilt show, and had more grandma duty, so I really only had time to work on 2 more blocks. There is “always tomorrow” to sew the remaining blocks. I do want to get them sewn and ready to assemble in the next 2 days. I have some travel plans beginning on Wednesday and will be gone for 2 weeks. You might get “one more Autumn Jubilee” post before I fly off for my next adventure.

My wrap up question to you is – Do you sew with children? How young and what types of things do you like to do with them?

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