I Have Lots of Time for Quilting with Five Small Kids

And here's how:

Baby Felix sleeping on his new blanket.
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My baby, sleeping on a blanket in the living room. There is a type of magic that comes out when you have five kids. That fifth one is special (as well as the first four, of course).

I have a bouncy chair that I keep in the basement where I sew. He bounces. He giggles.

But what do I do with the other kids? I'll admit that I do the bulk of my "sewing machine" sewing when my darling husband is home.

I also do a lot of hand sewing with the kids are around--at the side of the playground, waiting for gymnastics, sitting at the table while they do a puzzle. Then I can listen to them tell me about their Minecraft world (ugh!) or their new Rainbow Loom project in minute detail (double ugh!) or whatever is on their mind. My hands are moving and I am listening to them.

I try to listen to them, even when I am not really interested, although I struggle with this. I have a very limited tolerance for Minecraft talk.

I'll admit that I would love to spend an hour every day sitting in front of my sewing machine, but the truth is, my sewing machine is in the basement facing a wall. And I am not interacting nor engaging with my children whatsoever when I am doing this.

So I don't do very much quilting these days on the machine. I do a lot of it in my mind, though, planning and dreaming of colours and techniques. I hope this comes across in my patterns at least! :)

And I imagine that one day the kids will be older and I will have more time to work on my projects. I am not eager for this, but I know it will come anyway...

Teaching My Sons to Sew

In addition to my daughter, I have FOUR sons. I'm not sure how that happened...

My oldest son (aged 7) sewing his Plants vs Zombies quilt.
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I should disclose now that we home school, so we have a lot of time to pursue such things. And because we home school, my sons are less likely to know that no one else sews! Boys or girls for that matter. I remember sewing in home ec in grade 7. Now my oldest is only in grade two, so we are starting them young.

Even my four-year-old son got in on the action, but he was much more interested in going to the fabric store and picking out the colours.

I was very proud of them. They really stuck to it. And since it is a type of creative construction (like Lego), they seemed to really enjoy it.

They are pretty pleased with themselves. It really was a group effort, but it came out well!
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 I'm hoping to make a pattern available so that you too can make this quilt with your sons!

(I imagine that Minecraft would also lend itself well to quilting. If you know of anyone doing this, let me know!)

Regina Quilt Show 2014

The Regina Quilt Show was in May, but I was only able to get things ready for this post now! Time flies when it is finally nice outside.

I came in first in my category for Recycled Quilts! Woo! The prize is just enough to pay for my banquet ticket.

My first prize quilt: The Font Quilt. It was made out of recycled dress shirts and uses templates and spray paint. I have yet to find someone else who uses spray paint on their quilt!
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Unfortunately none of the kid quilts won. :( We had three in a category of seven and not one of them placed. This was quite disappointing because I know who I would have given ribbons to.

But seriously, we were quite surprised by this, especially after seeing the other quilts. The one that came in second place was professionally quilted! By an adult quilter that won a bunch of prizes for her fabulous quilting! Well!

My girl with her jeans and dresses quilt. Also next to her brother's Pea Shooter quilt (the green and purple).
You will notice that we didn't get a ribbon although we are surrounded by then. That one to the right of the photo is just square blocks and quilted by a professional. I'm sure you know what I think!
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And then there was the fact that my small children (7, 6 and 4) were up again 13 year olds. I really wonder what information the judges knew because in the children's category, shouldn't age be somewhat of a consideration?

My G with the quilt she made for Felix. The comment by the judge was that she should have picked a darker fabric for the name. I tried to steer her in that direction, but she wouldn't listen to me! :)
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Maybe I need to be a judge! I feel like my friend and I spent the vast majority of our time going around and trying to figure out what the judges were seeing--why did this quilt win over that one?

Let's chalk it up to another learning experience.

Making Quilts with a 5-Year-Old

It has come as no surprise that my little girl wanted to make a quilt.

My big girl making her own quilt, the Heart Rag Quilt.
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So we started one. I designed the pattern, then we went to Fabricland to pick out some fabric.

She traced the hearts and cut them out using little Fiskar scissors. Then we appliqued them on and stuffed them with stuffing. (We are using Crayola Washable Markers, so let's hope they stand up to their name of "washable.")

It went well. I like the pattern I developed because it is simple enough for her to do 100% of the stitching, but also not going to take us months and months to do.

The pattern is now available on Etsy. Teach your kids to sew. There is nothing more exciting than making something for yourself.

An Instructional Quilting Video from a Five-Year-Old Girl

My little 5-year-old made a quilt for her baby brother, Felix.

Having recently discovered the fun of iMovie, we decided to film part of it. Then I cut it into a four minute masterpiece.

Okay, masterpiece might be a bit of a stretch. But we did have a lot of fun doing it. For extra hominess, you can hear my furnace coming on and off in the background. I think we need a sound studio! I'll run this past my darling husband...