Sewing with my (Lefty) Daughter

September 17, 2012

A week or so before school started I asked on the Gingercake Facebook page about ideas for sewing with my 8 year old.  Thank you so much for the good advice!  She decided on making a tote bag together with a pocket on the front to hold some STUFF.

Elsie'sToteSewing with my lefty daughter was a bit more of a challenge than I thought.  She had a lot of trouble with my sewing scissors (in fact could barely cut with them at all!) and when she used the rotary cutter, she had to turn it in all sorts of funny angles and then still couldn't get a good cut very easily.  She loved slecting fabric though and using the machine was fun with me helping to guide.  The bag took about 3 hours to make over 2 days.  I tried hard not to rush her although I did feel like the whole project took a lot longer than I planned for a simple first adventure into real mother/ daughter sewing.
GingercakeWaterBottleCooler

This past Saturday we made this cute water bottle cooler (with insulbrite batting!) together before her soccer game.  She wanted it to match her uniform and we had fun searching for just the right colors.  She did most of the sewing and then we put the snaps on together.  This time I did all the cutting since she got all grumpy when I brought out the cutters.  "Do I HAVE to use those again??!!"  Hmm.  Cutting is a really big part of sewing I thought.

So now I see that I can purchase lefty scissors and even a lefty rotary cutter online!  What do you think lefty sewers?  Does she just need to get used to living in a righty world or will the purchase of lefty accessories make sewing that much more fun and accessible for her?    I couldn't find a good child lefty set so it looks like I would have to buy the real (and pretty expensive!) thing for her.  This would certainly be worth it if it meant the difference between having this hobby to share together and her giving up since using my tools is too hard!

 

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