Project: Fabric Nativity

     My children and I enjoy working on projects together.  (I use the term "together" loosely.)  This is especially true at Christmas. Recently, my sister and I found some various bits of forgotten projects from our youth; so forgotten, in fact, that none of us, including our mother in whose storage cabinets these were found, remembered they were there. One of these was a Nativity Scene that was to be sewn and stuffed, each character a little pillow in front of a stable backdrop. So I took it home and proceeded to finish it (I wanted something for my kids actually to be able to touch, as opposed to having only ceramic decorations they could easily break).  Now, I am not a seamstress.  You can just ask my best friend whom I helped with a project many years ago.  I sewed some buttons for her.  The buttons stayed on, mind you, but the craftsmanship left a lot to be desired.  (You can see more of her work at the blog "House of Trouble" listed on this page.  She is absolutely amazing.)  However, I can sew a small seam which, again, will usually hold, even it its a bit, shall we say, untidy.  Here is a picture of the Nativity Scene.

     I learned a number of things from this project.

     First, where you can use iron-on adhesive, do it.  It saves the fingers.

     Second, do not trim the shape of your object BEFORE you sew it, even if the directions say to and the pattern has outer lines to cut.  Cut a big circle or square, do the sewing, and then trim it.  Doing this helps you when you turn it right side out; you won't have places in your seam where the edge of the fabric sticks out.

     Third, six-year old children get bored easily.  Okay, so that's nothing new, but it impressed itself on me again.  My daughter helped with the stuffing--only.  However, she was an immense encouragement.  Even when my work looked horrible, she would say it was wonderful and amazing.  How's that for a loving stroke to one's self-esteem?

     Fourth, the last piece I do (if you are anything like me, yours too) is probably going to be the best.  My work improved as I figured out how best to go about it.  The directions were not very helpful.  I suppose to someone who has been doing this for years, the directions were adequate, but for a beginner like myself, they were distinctly lacking in depth and detail.  So I had to figure a lot out by trial and error.  But I learned, and I figure if a day goes by that I don't learn something new, that day has probably been wasted.