I have the world’s best little sister. She is 7 and a definite bright spot in my life. Amy loves drawing and dolls. The love of those two things eventually led her to designing clothes. She didn’t just want her clothes to be on paper, so she has begun to design them so she can cut them out and tape them on her dolls. She wants to learn to sew really bad. Sewing is a four-letter word in my mom’s house. She hates it. She avoids it. She didn’t know where to start with Amy, this is where I come in. I can’t teach Amy to sew from almost 2,000 miles away, but I can help.
This is a basic sewing project. It is meant to be Amy’s first project. If a seven-year-old can do it, so can you. 🙂 The photo below is the patterns I created for the project. Sorry, I am not fancy. The patterns are hand drawn. I am not sure how to upload a PDF, if someone knows let me know.
The project is done in felt because felt is easy to work with. It doesn’t fray and do some of the other things fabrics do.
You will need three colors for this project, A tan (the cookie), a pink (the frosting) and white (the teabag)
I used a cup to make my circles. I also traced that circle onto my pattern. Use whatever you are more comfortable with.
You need two brown circles and one pink one. Then cut the pink one with some squiggles on the outside so it has more of a frostingly shape.
You can see my frosting like shape on the pink circle below. Then sew the pink circle onto one of the brown circles. Use different colors of thread. These stitches don’t have to be anywhere near perfect. Different sizes and different places is half the fun of having sprinkles on your cookie.
Grab a small handful of batting and sandwich it between the two brown pieces. Make sure your pink piece is facing the outside. Do a simple stitch around the outside. If you start the stitch on the inside of one of the circles, you end will be on the inside of the cookie.
Cut out 1 teabag and three hearts from the pattern. Fold the teabag in half, putting a small cut of white ribbon at the top and do a simple stitch around the edges.
Using fabric glue, I glued the heart on the tea bag. At the top of the ribbon, place a heart on both sides of the ribbon and then glue them to each other.
There you have it. A cookie and a teabag for your next tea party.
I love it! If Amy likes sewing she might want to try some cross-stitching with plastic canvas — you can buy the little patterns, and the plastic canvas needles are big (nice for small hands) and blunt (nice for kids :). My niece, now 9, loves that and she can even do regular counted cross-stitch now.
PS — Tell your mom they're welcome to bring Amy here and I'll teach her. I take no responsibility for damaged fingers, however…
PS (again) — I am also interested in how to upload a PDF if you learn. It seems like most sites use a file hosting site…?
What a sweet sister you are! I think I'll hold onto this because my daughter, now age 4, also likes to cut fabric and use tape so she can make things for her baby dolls (too young to sew). This is a great first project for when she is a fwe years older. Thank you for sharing!