I try very hard to let Arden explore within reason, saying “no” only if there’s a risk of injury or a mess that’s more than just inconvenient. This has led to some interesting “Mommy’s little helper” moments in baking, knitting, and sewing.
If I’m working on a project while Arden’s around (which I try not to, but it happens), and she’s interested, I’ll sit her on my lap to let her “help”. She finds it fascinating, and I love that she’s experiencing something that is a big part of my life. We’ll just forget that my auto-threader no longer threads because she pushed it down while I was sewing and jammed everything up.
In these photos she actually did sew a little bit on her own – pushing the up/down button several times and advancing the needle. She was so excited!
Im not sure how old your little girl is, but Hello Kitty makes a machine thats like 20.00 and is for 3 years and up. Might be something she would like and would be safe.
My daughter is 5. We bought her the Singer $20 machine for little kids and it turned out to be beneath her skill (see blog I created for her http://alittlebitoffunkwithalotofso.blogspot.com/). At the same time all this was going on my brother-in-law’s girlfriend completed a whole Victorian dress with the Hello Kitty machine. It was amazing – he bought her a big girl machine for Christmas.
Then someone FBed me asking if I could teach them how to sew. Someone else commented that she shouldn’t take the time right now because her son is 2yo and he’ll mess things up. Well I just feel that you should involve your children in your projects as much as possible and that even 2yo’s can help sew. So to see your post made my heart happy. Happy sewing to the two of you!
Totally cute! My 2 year old hits the button too. I set up the embroidery part so when she hits the button the machine starts sewing. Then I change colors and she hits the button again. She cackles and asks me to sew all the time! I can’t wait til she gets older and can SEW with me. Maybe she can do a sewalong with Arden in a few years!!!