Quilting 101 - Teaching Erin and Emy

The first thing we did was to practice getting a feel for the sewing machine on a piece of scrap fabric. I have a Bernina Aurora 430, which has the option of throttling back the sewing speed. This means that I can set the machine to sew slowly even when they have the pedal floored! I put the pedal on a stool so that they could reach it comfortably while seated at the table. I had them do a straight stitch, and I had them practice doing a lock stitch at the beginning and end of a line of sewing, not with the automatic lock stitch feature but "manually" so they'd know how to do it on any machine. Then I also had them practice a zig zag stitch, with varying stitch sizes and widths. They thought that was SO COOL. :)

Finally, I let them dig through my stash of 4" charm squares and pick out four of them to make a simple four-patch block. Erin got bored after the first block (and was frustrated that Mom asked her to be slow and accurate when sewing... she's not one to sit still for long LOL) but Emy took to it like a duck takes to water. She continued on, making 4 four-patch blocks which we then joined together into a big 16-patch piece. I think she's on her way to becoming a quilter!! :)

Photos

	Here is Erin, trying out the sewing machine. She enjoyed it, though the machine felt "weird" and "freaky" at first LOL.
	Another image of Erin sewing. You can see that she is concentrating very hard, and she did a great job for her first time sewing!
	Here is Emy, trying out the sewing machine. Though this was her first time, she really did well and had good technique from the beginning.
	Another image of Emy sewing. You can see how she's guiding the fabric through the machine, and she did a nice job keeping her seam allowance even.
	Erin has pinned together the two halves of her four-patch, and is ready to sew them together!
	Emy is working hard at pinning her pieces together. Though she poked her fingers a few times, she didn't let that slow her down!
	Here they are, proud girls with their first four-patches! They did all the sewing themselves, though I did the pressing. I'm still too nervous to let them use the hot iron.
	This is where Erin got bored but Emy continued with me. She made three more four-patches, then joined them all together. Here is the 16 patch that she sewed all by herself!