My little seamstress....

My oldest child has a really cool school project; it’s called “market place”. They older grades usually hold it and invite the younger grades to come through and “buy” their product. The buyers are all given $100 of play money to spend on the products offered

Basically what happens is the kids in the class make or buy products to sell. They need to buy their tables, track the cost of their product, price it right and report their profits. The teachers have done a really great job to make this a fun way to learn a bit about economics and the value of a dollar.

My kids have been buyers for the past few years, now one is a seller and so excited.

And she has me as a mom.

The first question I asked her is what does she think she could make that other kids would buy. She has to stick to a theme: harvest.

She took one look at all my scraps of fabric and asked if she could sew bags, because in the past she’s noticed that kids buy stuff, but have nothing to carry it in.

OK. Design them.

Out came the butcher paper, and she designed a complicated embroidered in the hoop mess...Her idea was to digitize an in-the-hoop bag and make them on my embroidery machine. But I raised the question about time and cost.

I got the sad face.

So I suggested that maybe she could use the same concept, a long piece of fabric, folded three times, but use the serger to put them together.

So she serged the ends, then folded the fabric and surged the sides: voilà a mini messenger bag, in harvest colors!

To spruce it up a bit, she digitized little pumpkins, which we embroidered on orange felt, cut out and glued to the bags.

Here she is, my oldest making bags to sell at her "market place"

Her store was a hit!  She was so proud to come home and tell me that store was so busy she didn't even have time to shop at the other stores!

Her next store theme:  Holiday!