Sewing with "The Mitten"

What a fun morning we had at Toddler Sewing and Story Time this month!  After our awesome librarians read several snow-themed books including this pop-up version of "The Mitten", we had fun sewing our own mittens and retelling story.

The mitten is made of low-loft batting, which is the perfect snowy white material for sewing when you're using plastic needles and lacing yarn.  I used Jan Brett's amazing drawings for the mitten pattern and animals.  Yes, you could make the mitten out of paper, but that's not quite as much fun!

 First, the kids sewed around the mitten with a little adult help.

Next, they colored the animals, which have a few holes in each for easy lacing.

The kids loved lacing the animals and putting them into the mitten at the end.

Not only were they strengthening fine motor skills, but we talked about animals, colors, order, and story elements as they worked.  That's a lot of learning for these little sewers!

Many of them wanted to wear their mittens too!  Luckily, in Memphis, the temps don't get too cold, so a batting mitten is realistic!