Teaching Children How to Make Handmade Baby Quilts

Teaching our children how to make a handmade baby quilts ensures that the next generation will indeed preserve the lovely and beautiful art of quilting.

As a wide-eyed 8 year-old, I remember standing by the quilt frame watching my Grandma and friends ply the needle over the quilt blocks waiting for the opportunity to try a few stitches.  The joy of threading needles for Grandma as she chatted and sewed with her friends was the beginning of a history learning to make handmade baby quilts.  Today, I take every opportunity when my granddaughters are around to share with them my love of how to design and make handmade baby quilts and other quilting projects on the sewing machine or quilting frame.

The lessons learned from my Grandma have stood the test of time and now become valuable tools of my trade.  I take joy in passing these skills on to my granddaughters.  Teaching children how to pin pieces together, storing and using quilting equipment properly are basics that can be taught at an early age.  Children learn how to cut and carry scissors at an early age, so teaching a young child to use sewing snips or that you never cut paper with Grammie’s sewing scissors might be a great starting point.  Since pins should be stored in the proper containers or in pin cushion.  A perfect lesson for a little new quilter is to learn the different pins, for example curved safety pins or straight pin, how to hold them safely, and where they belong in the sewing cabinet. Having our children sit on our lap and sew blocks together, builds a desire to want to learn more the next time they visit with Grammie.

The time you spend teaching children how to make handmade baby quilts or just safety features of quilting is a Grandmother’s dream.