Sewing With Nieces

My twin nieces are 15 now (already!) and about to finish 9th grade. On Saturday, they needed their Aunt Jayne for some sewing instruction on their AHG projects for sewing badges. As I understand it, American Heritage Girls is an equivalent to Girl Scouts.

Mary Jean was making a brown skirt out of a sturdy cotton - maybe twill or duck? Anyway, it was easy to work with, and she had selected a super-easy pattern, so everything was pretty much straightforward construction.

MJ is the more reluctant sewist of the two; she'd much rather crochet than sew. She's taught herself to crochet and she's quite good. But sew she did, and her skirt looks pretty darn sweet.

I left her with hand-stitching the hem and tacking down the waist facing. Pretty good day's work! We hadn't even cut this out when we started.

Now, Anna Rose did have her dress already cut out, thankfully. She is the more eager for sewing, and was in the interfacing prep stage. Her fabric was a stretchy lightweight polyester, and while I was concerned about how tricky it would be to work with, it sewed beautifully.

I don't have a picture of AR wearing her dress; we didn't get that far. Too many pins! She had a lot of hand work left to do - hem, facings and the like. It will be a sweet little black dress for her when she has a dressy occasion. 

Makes me glad that I learned how to sew way back when. Mom always had a sewing machine up and ready for stitching - more out of necessity than desire. I was always fascinated by the machine, and was so happy when I was finally allowed to use it.

Hopefully, these beautiful nieces will continue to want to sew and to feel more and more comfortable doing various projects.

Happy Quilting, Friends!