Damian Learns to Sew

October 06, 2018

Damian has decided that he really wants to learn to sew. A lot of his little friends have made fun of him for this, but he's determined anyway, and so I agreed to do what I can to teach him. I felt a hand sewing project would be best, and so I took Damian to the store to pick out some fabric.

He looked at the stack of flat folds, but he didn't find anything that he wanted to use. He really liked the red one with stars, though, and pointed it out to me. I told him that it was nice, but maybe he should look at home before deciding what fabric to use.

At home Damian found a pattern for an elephant and a striped Halloween fabric. He decided these would be perfect and so I helped him cut out a plush elephant. Then we sat down, and I showed him what to do.

He took a needle and threaded it. Then he began to sew the ears. I was concerned by the length of the thread he had...

My concerns were well founded because he had himself hopelessly tangled in a few minutes.

With some patience, I sat with Damian and he worked until he got closer to finishing his elephant. Once all the pieces were sewn and turned, I showed him how to stuff it.

His little hands were perfectly sized to push fiberfill through the hole in the back of the elephant's body.

Finally, his elephant was finished! He was so proud of how it turned out.

He did a really great job, and his elephant is so cute.

What a perfect little Halloween elephant.

Since Halloween is coming up, Damian also wanted to list his elephant and make some money for more supplies for his next lesson. I thought that if he wanted to learn to sew, he should also learn to sell. To begin we needed to photograph his elephant.

First, I told him he would need some props for his photos. Just like a little boy to balance precariously on the side of the bucket...

Damian chose a little bench that was the perfect size for the elephant and looked antique. It was the only prop he wanted out of the box, and so I had him bring it along to where we'd set up for the photo shoot.

I helped Damian set up the backdrop, which included a forest fabric background and grass floor. Damian set out his bench in the perfect spot.

While he was doing that, I gathered a big pile of faux leaves for him to use.

"These will be perfect!" Damian exclaimed. "Let's toss them all over the place."

He proceeded to make a mess while I watched.

"This spot needs one more leaf," he dropped his leaf at his feet. "There! Now it's ready."

The Wall's camera is big and heavy, so Damian set up a stool at eye level to use as a tripod as he took photos.

Damian took his photography very seriously.

This was his favorite of the pictures he took of his purple elephant. He asked me to post it here so that everyone could see it.

Damian liked his pictures of the purple elephant so much he decided to photograph the orange one a second time for me to improve my listing photos. He liked this one best of those and asked me to post it as well.