Recently Elsie woke up and declared she wanted to learn how to sew. So after lunch I set her up with an embroidery hoop and a needle with embroidery floss on it. I showed her how to lick the thread to thread the needle and then knotted the end and taught her how to do a running stitch. That first day she made a very darling M for Mom and a D for Dad on her first hoop.
Later she showed my mom what she had made and my mom told me that for Christmas this year, she had a quilt kit she wanted to give to Elsie. What an awesome gift idea! It was only later that night that I realized if my mom gave it to her for Christmas my mom would then be gone for the next four months to Arizona, leaving me with a quilt kit and an eager 7-year-old. And this sounded terrible with my very limited sewing skills. So I called my mom and said, “I can’t even reload my bobbin, Mom. I think you had better be the one to teach Elsie how to sew before you go to Mesa.” We decided she could give her the completed quilt for Christmas.
![](https://www.thegrovestead.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/IMG_2045-1160x870.jpg)
So the next week my mom came over two afternoons in a row to work with Elsie. And now Elsie officially knows more about sewing and quilting than I do! She taught Elsie how to sew in a straight line by taking the thread out of the sewing machine and having Elsie sew on the lines of a piece of notebook paper. Mom said that her mom would teach a lot of 4H girls how to sew each year, and this was how she always began.
![](https://www.thegrovestead.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/IMG_2053-1160x870.jpg)
![](https://www.thegrovestead.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/IMG_2054-1160x870.jpg)
I love this grandma-teaching-granddaughter set up. Elsie is very interested and it has been so fun to watch them work together. The quilt is pieced together and next I think they put the back on. But I actually don’t know for sure because I have never made a quilt! So I am learning a whole lot too.
My mom posted a picture of the two of them on her facebook page and so many her friends commented that they were making much more than a doll quilt…together they were making a forever memory.
I just loved that thought.
![](https://www.thegrovestead.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/IMG_2058-1160x870.jpg)
1 comment
This is so great! If the sewing bug bites Elsie while Grandma H is in AZ, hit me up. I love to pass along the art of sewing and quilting!