Many of my friends have girls. I believe that all kids benefit from knowing adults who are not their parent (although some don’t get that lucky).

Since I a) don’t have any kids of my own, and b) really like kids, I enjoy taking the girls out on dates from time to time. This is one of the best parts of my life.

Monday I had the pleasure of four hours with a remarkable 10 year old. We had dinner at a place she had never tried before. Then we went back to my house, made brownies (and later brownie sundaes – with Brian), and had a creative time.

She had just acquired a stack of books at Everybody Reads Bookstore, before I picked her up. The pile of books came in to the house. One of them was about embroidery. Cool! I love to embroider and had a bag full (yes, maybe too full) of supplies.

While the brownies were baking, we found a rag made from an old shirt, to embroider. It turns out that piece of the shirt had a pocket. Not too long after the find, she determined it might make a fun purse.

We got out the embroidery floss and a needle, and she commenced to experiment with sewing a bit. This turned into the choice of a word, “Heart,” embroidered on the pocket.

She chose a button to sew on the pocket, and I let her pick a ribbon from my collection for a strap. She did all of the sewing herself, and all of the design choices. I just presented materials and she did the rest.

I sent her home with an embroidery kit of her own. I had a great hot-pink plastic embroidery hoop I could spare.

We found a bag in my supplies for teaching kids (thanks, Riin!), and she picked several colors of embroidery floss to take home. I had a mint tin where we could put her sewing needle safely , a small pouch for her to put that tin and the floss in, and a pair of inexpensive scissors. She’s all set to keep going!

I love what kids do when we let them. A few supplies, and the hands and mind pull a project along.

Nice job, sweetie!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 1st, 2011 at 1:42 pmand is filed under Kids who Knit, Miscellaneous Artforms. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.