May 23, 2020

Virtual Sewing Circle

I miss visits with my daughter. She’s an adult and my best friend. It feels like forever since we hugged and shared the same physical space. This is us last April, when we went on a trip, just the two of us, to Ireland.

My daughter lives alone and is sheltering in place about 2 hours away. To help with the loneliness during this shelter in place times, my daughter and I will be doing crafts together via facetime or zoom. We will work on the same projects and chat.

I will be teaching her some hand sewing techniques, such as cross stitch, embroidery, and Sashiko. I’ve sent her all the supplies and we are so excited to get started.

I made her a cross-stitched needle book, since she doesn’t have sewing supplies or a basket. She used to sew when she lived at home, but never really caught the sewing bug. She’s tried a few different things as a child and teen, but hasn’t really kept it up.

This is the back of her needle book. I forgot how much I love doing cross stitch and hand sewing!

She loves cute pink things, so I also made her a cute pin cushion.

After making several, I finally got a result I was happy with and made it available as a pdf pattern. Available on Etsy here:

Make it with or with a needle minder and thread loops for your embroidery floss that you’ve separated.

I pulled out my Know Your Needles book, by Liz Kettle, which is so handy for making sure you’ve chosen the proper needle for the type of hand needle work you’re doing. I bought it years ago, mostly for the hand sewing section and I’m so glad I did!

We’ve had several vitual get togethers and it’s been great! My daughter is enjoying it so much, she wants to zoom or facetime almost every night. I thought she’d want to sew together a couple times a week, but I was wrong. It’s been almost nightly!

We started with Sashiko. Neither of us have done Sashiko before, so this handy pocket guide, Sashiko Handy Pocket Guide by Sylvia Pippen, was so helpful for me, especially since I was supposed to be teaching my daughter how to do the project 🙂

Not only does it have a great number of helpful tips that I would not have known about and saved me some headaches while learning a new type of stitch work, but I absolutely loved reading about the author’s experience and history of Sashiko. It’s a wonderful book!

Here is my progress so far on the Sashiko project we’re both doing. Getting the hang of it and really like it.