Mercedi’s First Quilt

Last week, my oldest daughter, Mercedi, turned 5.  Lately, she’s been showing a lot of interest in my mother-in-law’s and my quilts.  She loves the fabric, watching us sew, and of course, the end result. So, just before Cedi’s birthday we went to JoAnn’s and I let her pick out any 12 fat quarters of fabric that she wanted. I honestly thought that she would pick all pinks – her favorite color.   But she surprised me and picked a really nice assortment (quite a few pinks but still – a really good mixture).   For her birthday, I starched, ironed and cut all of her fabric into 9-inch x 6-inch rectangles.  It was Diane’s (her grandma) idea for Cedi’s first quilt to be a brick quilt.  This is a really smart move since you don’t have to worry about matching corners AT ALL!    Grandma (Diane) made Cedi her very own sewing/quilting bag.  Complete with her name, A selection of threads, a fun pin cushion, and a few more essentials. Diane offered to teach Cedi to sew at her house.  I took her up on this immediately.  For one, I definitely don’t have the patience with my kids that either of the Grandma’s do.    Also – it would be difficult for me to teach Cedi with her two little sister’s hanging around.  She only works on her quilt at Grandma’s when they’re having special “Cedi & Grandma” time.  This also eliminates the nagging to use my machine and being sewing all the time when there are other things for us to do around my house. Yes, you are seeing the photo’s correctly.  Diane is teaching Cedi on her Janome Memory Craft 6600.  This has actually worked out fantastically!  If you know Janome’s at all you can see in the photo’s that the sewing speed is set to the absolute lowest setting.It was so cool to see her sewing!  She started by lining up her fabric – Grandma helped make sure the right sides were together and they were lined up nicely.  Then she put the two pieces under the presser foot, put the foot down, pressed the ‘needle down’ button, and started to sew (blanket on the chair, presser foot on a crate).        She concentrated so hard! And ended up with a really nice seem! She even already new the button to press to cut the thread, lifted the foot up and then… Showed me her seamed pieces! I’ll keep you posted on how Cedi progresses! If you’ve taught a child to quilt – we would love to hear any tips you have to share.  I really want all my girls to enjoy creating but I don’t want to push them into anything they don’t want so they end up resenting it.  So far, Cedi’s been the driving force behind this quilt so we’ll keep supporting her as long as she does.