Simple, pretty and fun holders for embroidery floss, make stitching fun (and organized!) for little hands!

My daughter is enjoying stitching these days.
Her Auntie got her a sweet little vintage sewing box (wooden, in the shape of a treadle sewing machine) for Christmas, and I finally got around to organizing a few simple supplies and tools for her to call her own.
Scissors, her blunt tapestry needles and a needle pouch.

But the the thread.
Loose and trailing threads are the bane of my existence, I don't want to deal with it for Rowan, too!
I do have lots of the little cardboard and plastic thingys that you wrap your embroidery floss around.
B.o.r.i.n.g.

Any of the alternatives I could find online involved tying the thread through a hole.
Awkward for little hands AND boring.
So, with a determination to use materials on hand and a bit of trial and error, I came up with these sweet little floss holders...
 Materials:

• Colorful paper or cardstock
• Scissors
• Glue stick
• Image to trace
• Lamination sheet + laminator (or get them done at your library or copy shop)~ or use cardboard.

Instructions:
1) Decide on your shape and size.  Butterflies work particularly well as they have a natural shape that lends itself to holding floss, but pretty much anything will do if it can contain the thread on either side!

2) Make a template:  you could draw your own, or trace from a book.  I went to Google Images and searched for "vector image butterfly silhouette"~ as this was for personal use, and not for sale, I simply fond an image that suited  my needs, and printed it out in the size I needed (2" tall).

3) Cut out your shapes: Each holder will need two pieces of paper (front and back), so I stacked up some (textured) scrapbooking paper left from a long ago project, and cut out 24 butterflies (for 12 holders).  If your shape is not symmetrical, remember to turn your papers either both right sides out or both right sides in!

4) Add a dab of glue: between each pair, right sides out.  I forgot to do this on some of mine and they slid askew during lamination.

5) Laminate: follow the instructions for your laminator, or take a quick trip to the copy shop or library!  I managed to fit all 12~ 2" high butterflies on one sheet.

6) Cut out and put them to work: Cut out all of your shapes, cut a slit into one side (between upper and lower wings on my butterflies) to hold the live tail of the floss.  Wrap floss around the middle of the butterfly and tuck in the tail.  While these could easily hold an entire skein, I only put 1/2 skein on each for my daughter, less chance of entanglement!

Finally, I put the holders into a small wooden tray (left over from a stamp set, I believe~ perfect size!) and slipped them into Rowan's sewing box as a surprise after school.

 How easy is that? And they look so pretty and appealing... I kind of want to go and make some for all of my floss! ♥♥

Today's Guest Blogger offers so many wonderful resources through her blog Little Hearts Books, I have been enjoying her work and I am happy to share:

L.R.Knost, Christian author and homeschooling mother of six, is a Gentle Parenting advocate, writer, speaker, and founder of the advocacy and consulting group, Little Hearts/Gentle Parenting Resources. The Wisdom For Little Hearts series by L.R.Knost is a tool for parents, teachers, and caregivers to use in implementing Gentle Parenting techniques in their homes and schools. Other works by this award-winning, Christian author include a devotional guide, numerous church plays and dramas, a children’s homeschool language arts curriculum, and children’s church curriculums.

The No Zone
The life of a small child is comprised of a daily onslaught of tempting surfaces begging for the artistry of a crayon, tall places crying out to be scaled, lovely little objects in need of a mouth or nose to visit, and dozens of other alluring glass and liquid and sharp things to be explored through the physics of gravity, the kinetics of concoctions, and the application of Newton’s Laws of Motion. There is only one force powerful enough to defeat this nearly irresistible call of adventure, imagination, and discovery…The No!
 Every child knows the power of The No to circumvent the most well-laid plans. Even tiny babies just weeks into the world are introduced to its power when they grasp a fistful of hair while nursing or reach for some lovely, squishy stuff while getting a diaper change. That itty bitty two-letter word is packed with a force beyond comprehension to a toddler, and when they finally figure out how to wrap their little lips around those letters and form the word, NO, themselves, the possibilities seem limitless!

Do you want a cookie? “No!” Well, actually, yes, but how cool is it that when I said ‘no’ I controlled whether or not someone gave me a cookie!

Do you want Daddy to hold you? “No!” Well, yes, but I got to decide whether someone held me or not for a change!

That kind of power and control can go to a little person’s head, for sure! And the change in the big people when the word is used against them clearly demonstrates its incredible value. Their faces go from happy to serious or even angry, and sometimes a little person can even make a big person yell. What dizzying power!

And then little ones finally get a few more words to add…direct quotes from the most powerful beings they know, mommy and daddy…quotes like, “I said ‘No’!” and “Don’t you tell me ‘No’!” and “No means ‘No’!” The authority! The dominion! The clout! And using them against those powerful beings, watching them turn red in the face and yell and threaten, well, it’s scary and makes a small person feel really disconnected and upset, but the surge of intense pleasure at feeling powerful and in control almost makes them feel…like a big person for a moment.

And that’s what they long to be, just like mommy and daddy. Big. And strong. And smart. And powerful.

So what’s a mommy or daddy to do when confronted with The No from their little power-mongers? First, take a deep breath, and then engage those adult brains. What inherent power is there, really, in a little two-letter word? Only the power we give it! What if, instead of that tiny word being able to push our buttons, we just disconnected the buttons entirely and didn’t react to The No at all? It would simply become a no. Just another word to celebrate our precious little people adding to their fledgling vocabularies.

And what if we backed up even further and disenfranchised The No from the beginning? When our newborn baby’s flailing hands caught a tiny fistful of hair or landed in some squishy stuff, what if we just smiled and gently removed it and kissed those itty little fingers (after a wipey when squishy stuff was involved, of course!)? What if when our little people headed for the walls to go all Michelangelo on them, we offered alternative canvases? Or when they ascended the kitchen cabinets, we scooped them up and headed out to the swing-set?

The No is only The No when we, the adults, make it The No. And it can become simply a no when we get creative and inter-active and stop using a tiny two-letter word like it has “Phenomenal Cosmic Power” in an “itty bitty living space!” (Disney’s Aladdin, 1992).

Visit Little Hearts.♥
Interested in blogging for BTRT?
Send a note and we'll chat!♥♥

Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern; it will come out a rose by and by. Life is like that - one stitch at a time taken patiently and the pattern will come out all right like the embroidery. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

My daughter has continued to express an interest in working with a needle and thread. 
You can follow her progression over three projects in 2 years, to get an idea of the various levels as she has grown:
Project One @ age 4.5
Project 2 @ Age 5.25

Working with a blunt tapestry needle and large count Aida cloth (10 ct.), she continues to work on her fine motor skills, which of course are invaluable for the work of writing she does at school as a Grade One student. Not to mention the delight she gets from watching her creations take on colour and shape.

At nearly 6.5, she has drawn her own design (the girl still loves her dinosaurs!)

I copied this onto the cross stitch fabric using washable markers.

We placed the fabric in the hoop, taped up the raw edges and rolled and pinned them for ease of stitching.her next goal is to be able to thread the needle on her own.

As this project is fairly ambitious, she is working at it as she feels moved~ generally when I am at my work table and she wants to be close by (wonderful bonding time! ♥).
Having her own sewing basket is a point of pride.


Don't be afraid to start your little one on even the simplest of stitching!
Patience, hand/eye coordination, fine motor control, and a creative opportunities are just a few of the benefits.
As Holmes says... Life is like that.♥♥

Not because of privacy issues, or spam or changing understanding of community and individuals....

But because sometimes I want to not know the answer.
Or, more than this, I want to ask someone else to tell me.

I know I always *can* ask someone, but with the Internet at our fingertips day and night,
we don't *have* to ask any more.

We don't have to ask for directions and happen upon that neat little family owned business in a small town.
We don't have to ask around for the family favoured chocolate chip cookie recipe~ we can choose from 100 different ones online.

I was wondering the other day, after watching The Muppets, why Milton Berle was called 'Uncle Milty'.
And I want to ask someone who knows.
Someone who remembers , maybe, hearing him on the radio, who remembers Vaudeville and the first tv shows.
Who has memories of watching Berle on the black and white set with friends or family.
Someone for whom those memories bring a smile to their face as they tell me the answer.
Or even say, "I don't know! I always liked George Burns better".

And sometimes, I want to be wrong.
For like, ever.
Take misheard lyrics as an example.
Now if we don't understand them, we can just look them up.
Gone is the fun of singing along, wrongly..
"Every time you go away, you take a piece of meat with you..." for decades.
I mean, I just found out this year that in 'We wish you a Merry Christmas', the line is NOT "Good tidings we bring, to you and your KING" (OK, it never made sense, but hey, I figured it was old and people were all about honouring the King!) but "you and your kin".
I always just sang along... until I looked up the history of the hymn for a service.
Hmph.


Don't get me wrong, I love that I can figure out how to clean anything, cook anything, find anything, buy anything... but somehow, it still holds more value to get that cleaning secret from a neighbour, the recipe from my mom... and so on.
It just does.
And I think if we lose that, we lose something incredibly valuable to us as human beings.
Shared knowledge and experience.

I work with a lot of seniors.
Folks who still do it 'the old fashioned' way.
And they feel sidelined by all of the rapidly changing technology around us.
But they shouldn't... they are the storykeepers and if we are smart, the story tellers.
After all, as Santayana said "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it".


The Internet is an amazing tool.
But it is a tool.
It is not a person, or a relationship or a memory.

And so I need to go and ask an older friend to tell me more about Uncle Milty.
And find a reason to make Great-Great Aunt Bea's Ambrosia Salad that she made for Great Uncle David's January birthday every year.
♥♥

Woohoo!
It is no secret that I like to dye things in bright and pretty colours, is it?!

Cotton, bamboo, silk... you name it!
And for a while now, I have been working on wool~ bringing some of my favourite colourways (colour combinations) across from silk onto wool and I am very happy with the results of my hand painting adventures!


I have chosen to use my favourite wool for fulling (=felting of knitted or crocheted items)~ a gorgeous single ply merino.  This yarn is wonderfully soft and lofty~ reminiscent of a handspun yarn.
I am terribly sensitive to processed wool, and cannot wear it~ but this yarn I happily wear next to my skin.

It felts in minutes~ evenly and without the fuzziness you sometimes get from other yarns, making a nice supple fabric to work with whether hand or machine sewing.
It also works well for non-felted items, but I don't suggest using it for mittens or other projects that will take a lot of wear and friction... because it does felt easily!

'Easter Eggs' crocheted

'Easter Eggs' knit and felted

This yarn is available in 3.5 oz cakes or skeins.
I can custom dye more if you need it, or skein off less for you, too (it is a great yarn for craft projects in which you may only need an ounce or two).

Take a peek~ and I would love your feedback!♥♥