sewing cloud pillows

Sewing cloud pillows with kiddos is not much different than sewing mittens. The children first drew their pattern. I had a few hesitant cloud artists so we talked about clouds and what shapes they were made of. Did they have angles or curves? Clouds were drawn as blobs, squiggles, and/or circle. I explained I would cut around their cloud shape to create their pattern. For those that were more scissors adept they cut their own cloud shape out. Next they pinned their pattern to the felt and I cut it our for them. Cutting out two layers of felt in a cloud shape is pretty tricky so this should be done by an adult. The children selected their embroidery thread and once I threaded their needle they got to stitching. Use a contrasting thread so the kiddos can see where they are sewing. We try to focus inserting the needle always from the same side so they can poke up or poke down.

Once they finished the curvy parts of the stitching they removed their pins (they LOVE this part, the pin cushion is fascinating to them and they will often pull out the pins and replace them over and over again) they pulled and gathered bits of fiberfill and stuffed them into their clouds-to-be. After their clouds were suitably stuffed they got back to sewing! Ta-da!