Tag Archive | plastic needles

Fun with Felt

Felt is one of those great materials that can be used for all kinds of crafts and/or projects.  It is a great medium to use with children because it doesn’t fray or ravel, it is very colorful, soft to the touch, glueable, sewable, etc.

I like to use it to help teach young children some basic sewing stitches too.  Felt can be purchased in several different colors and it is already cut into perfect squares and ready to be crafted into something fun.  For a very simple sewing project, let the child select the two pieces of felt they want to work with and just have them whip stitch the two pieces together.   You could also have them put two pieces of fabric together and do a straight stitch, either very long stitches or short stitches will work.  What stitches you show the child, will depend on the age of the little one and their coordination abilities.

If you are working with an older child, let them cut the felt into shapes, like circles or triangles and then sew these together.  Or cut out different colored ovals and circles and stitch together to form a flower. You could have them do a straight stitch along the outer edges of the felt shapes before they are sewn together for a more textured and colorful flower design.  Let imagination take center stage!!

These are activities that should be supervised by an adult.  Remember, don’t use a regular sewing needle, too sharp and too small.  There are actually plastic yarn needles available that will sew through felt and are perfect for little ones.  If you are working with children 7 or older, you could probably use a metal yarn needle or tapestry needles.  These also have the larger eyes with blunt tips too.

There are lots of choices available for your thread selection too.  You could use bright, colorful DMC floss or a ball of crochet thread or even a skein of yarn probably a size 3 or smaller.   Using bright, cheery felt squares with colorful thread makes for a fun craft project.  When using DMC floss, I would suggest using three strands to sew with.

Don’t forget to embellish your finished sewing project.  Felt is a great material to glue things on it.  You can either cut up felt scraps to make eyes, hair or geometric designs or use pompoms, big plastic buttons, cotton balls, construction paper designs; the list is endless.

Enjoy your activity, be creative, expose your little ones to sewing mediums and maybe an artist interest will develop in the process.

HAPPY CREATING!!

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